


A New Friend

by Hawkerin



Series: Family Timelines [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, series 5 rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-24 23:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 112,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3787894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkerin/pseuds/Hawkerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The newly regenerated Doctor, Rose, and Jamie meet a new friend. Amy and Rory join them for new adventures, but who is River Song?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eleventh Hour: Part One

Chapter One – Eleventh Hour: Part One

 

The TARDIS was flying out of control and there were flames burning beneath the grating. The Doctor had been trying to get the time ship under control, when a particularly nasty jolt sent him rolling down the ramp and right out the door. Rose ran to help her husband back inside from where he was just barely hanging on.

 

“Doctor!” she yelled, scared that he'd lose his grip and fall to London below. “I've got you, love! What is it with you regenerating and sending this thing out of control? Couldn't you regenerate with it parked safely on the ground?” Rose asked as she tried to pull him up.

 

“Sorry... More fun this way,” the Doctor told her with a wink.

 

The console sparked loudly and Jamie shrieked. Rose and the Doctor were suddenly distracted by his fear and the Doctor almost slipped from her hands again. He was dangling rather precariously and Rose could see that they were headed straight for a tall church spire.

 

“Jamie! Pull that big lever by the stabilizers!” Rose shouted over her shoulder as she grabbed hold of her husband's forearms rather than his hands and pulled hard enough for him to come through the door and land right on top of her on the floor.

 

“Well, as lovely a position as this is, let's try to land safely for now, yeah?” the Doctor said as he got up and shut the doors behind him. Rose and the Doctor both ran to help Jamie with the controls.

 

After a few more minutes of the console sparking and grinding, the TARDIS came to a stop with a mighty crash. The gravity shifted, violently throwing them down the hall all the way to the swimming pool. The problem was, looking around, they were in the library. The swimming pool was supposed to be across the hall, however the water seemed to have migrated into the library.

 

With much sputtering and coughing, the Doctor, Rose, and Jamie found each other in the water. The Doctor reached deeply into his pocket and pulled out a length of rope with a large hook on the end.

 

“I should be able to get us out of here with this,” the Doctor told them as he threw the hook to latch around the railings in the console room down the hall.

 

They pulled their way to the railings, then the Doctor snapped his fingers and the doors flew open. With a wink to his wife, the Doctor threw the hook once more to catch something outside and they began to climb out.

 

The Doctor went first through the door and peeking over the edge, he started talking to someone outside, “Could I have an apple? All I can think about. Apples... I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving? That's new. Never had cravings before.”

 

“Oh really, love?” Rose called to him and giggled when he blushed pink. “How about you help the rest of us out of here, yeah?”

 

The Doctor straddled the edge of the doorway and lifted Jamie and then Rose over and out before jumping down to the ground himself. Rose could feel the Doctor's slightly manic, confused thoughts and recognized what it was he was craving. It wasn't apples, it was a snack they had shared once when he had regenerated the last time.

 

“Are you ok?” a little girl asked them in a Scottish accent.

 

“Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Hell of a climb back up,” the Doctor told the little girl.

 

“You're soaking wet,” she observed.

 

“We were in the swimming pool,” Rose added.

 

“You said you were in the library,” the little girl argued.

 

“So was the swimming pool,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Can we keep the pool in the library? That would be brilliant, yeah?” Jamie asked his parents excitedly.

 

“Sorry, sweetheart, it's not good for the books,” Rose said and ruffled his damp hair.

 

“Are you a policeman?” the little girl asked hopefully.

 

“Why? Did you call a policeman?” the Doctor wondered as he studied the girl thoughtfully.

 

“Did you come about the crack in my wall?” she continued to question without answering.

 

“What crack? ... Argh!!” the Doctor began then fell to the ground as he clutched his stomach.

 

“Are you alright, love? Do you need tea or something? Like last time?” Rose questioned as she rushed to his side and put an arm around his shoulders.

 

“No, I'm fine. It's ok... this is all perfectly norm...” he sputtered and then breathed out a small cloud of golden regeneration energy.

 

“Oh my god. Is that going to attract the Sycorax again?” Rose panicked at the sight, so familiar to the last time when he slept for days and one of his hearts had stopped.

 

“No, dear. No, it's fine,” he assured her as he patted her hand on his shoulder.

 

“Who are you?” the little girl asked him.

 

“I don't know yet. I'm still cooking,” the Doctor replied, looking at his hands which were still glowing a little.

 

Jamie laughed at his father's behaviour. “He's called the Doctor. He's my daddy. My mum's name is Rose, and I'm Jamie,” he informed her.

 

“Does it scare you?” the Doctor asked the little girl.

 

“No, it just looks a bit weird that you're glowing,” she replied.

 

“No, no, no... the crack in your wall. Does it scare you?” the Doctor clarified.

 

“Yes,” she said quietly.

 

“Well then, no time to lose. I'm the Doctor, like he said. That's Rose and Jamie. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions, and don't wander off,” he rambled as he jumped to his feet.

 

“Wandering off comes later,” Rose murmured under her breath and watched as her husband walked straight into a tree.

 

Everyone ran to his side again as he sat up from where he fell.

 

“Are you alright, daddy?” Jamie asked him.

 

“Early days. Steering's a bit off,” the Doctor replied and Rose put her arms beneath his and pulled him back up. He patted her head and started confidently walking towards the house.

 

Rose shook her head at him and took the hands of both children to follow him. When they reached the kitchen, the little girl grabbed an apple and handed it to the Doctor. He looked at her suspiciously before taking a bite of it.

 

He immediately spit it back out again, saying plainly, “That's disgusting. What is that?”

 

“An apple,” the girl told him as if he were stupid.

 

“Tell you what, sweetheart. He's a bit hungry and confused, do you think we could have a bit of a snack with you?” Rose asked her.

 

“Sure,” the little girl said with a shrug as if strangers came to her house in the middle of the night for a snack all the time.

 

“What's your name?” Rose questioned with her hand out to shake.

 

“Amelia Pond,” she told Rose and shook her hand with a smile.

 

Rose watched as the Doctor searched through the cupboards for something else to try eating and threw cans across the room over his shoulder. He moved on to the fridge and pulled out a small, white container. “Ah! Yogurt! Yogurt's my favourite!”

 

He pulled open the top and poured it into his mouth, immediately spitting it onto the floor. “I hate yogurt. It's just stuff with bits in,” he complained and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

 

“Is he always like this?” Amelia asked Jamie as they watched him spit out the various foods that he found in the fridge.

 

“No, he just regenerated. Mum said he gets a bit sick after it happens, but he'll be alright soon,” Jamie replied.

 

“I know what you're craving, love. Will you let me get it for you?” Rose asked and guided him to sit at the table.

 

“How do you know what I'm craving? I don't even know what I'm craving,” the Doctor complained but sat down obediently.

 

“Because I can feel it,” she said tapping her temple. “And we've had this before.”

 

Rose pulled a box of fish fingers from the freezer and a carton of custard from the fridge. She warmed up the fish fingers and poured the custard into a large bowl.

 

“Oh! You are brilliant, Rose! Absolutely brilliant. Yes! When we were experimenting with dipping our fish and chips in all kinds of stuff at that buffet on Barcelona,” the Doctor praised and smiled broadly at the memory.

 

“Don't you mean _in_ Barcelona?” Amelia asked.

 

“Nope. On Barcelona, the planet,” Rose answered as she placed the items in front of her husband.

 

“Can we have ice cream, mummy?” Jamie queried with his most convincing smile.

 

“If it's alright with Amelia, it's fine with me,” she told him and sat herself down to dunk fish fingers in custard with her husband. The Doctor decided to feed some of it to her with a teasing grin and they proceeded to finish all of the fish and custard while the kids both ate ice cream straight from the tub.

 

“You sound Scottish. Are we in Scotland?” Jamie asked Amelia.

 

“No. We had to move to England. It's rubbish,” she told him.

 

“So what about your mum and dad, then? Are they upstairs? Thought we might have woken them by now?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt,” Amelia said.

 

“You don't have a mum and dad? That's rubbish. Do you want to share mine? You could come with us! It would be great!” Jamie told her, getting more excited by the second.

 

“Slow down, Jamie. I think Amelia's aunt might be a little bit upset if she disappeared. So, where is your aunt, sweetheart?” Rose asked her.

 

“She's out,” she said a bit crossly.

 

“And she left you all alone?” the Doctor asked incredulously.

 

“I'm not scared!” she replied.

 

“Course, you're not. You're not scared of anything. Box falls out of the sky, a family falls out of the box, we eat fish custard in your kitchen, and look at you... just sitting there. So, you know what I think?” the Doctor rambled.

 

“What?” Amelia wondered where he was going with all of this.

 

“Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall,” he told her as he wiped some custard from his mouth and sucked on his finger.

 

Amelia led them up to her room to look at the crack. The Doctor moved to examine it closely. Rose looked at the various toys and books around the room and Jamie stood next to the little girl.

 

“Will you be my friend, Amelia?” Jamie asked her. “I don't really have any friends my age.”

 

“I guess so,” she replied with a shrug.

 

“You've had some cowboys in here. Not actual cowboys, though that can happen,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it. So, here's a thing... where's the draught coming from?”

 

The Doctor scanned the crack with his sonic. “Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... Jamie, what do you think?” he asked his son.

 

Jamie pulled out his own sonic and scanned it. “That's weird. The crack isn't in the wall,” he said.

 

“You're right. If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, because the crack is everywhere... in everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together right here in the wall of your bedroom,” the Doctor told them as he examined it more closely.

 

“Can you hear anything through it?” Jamie wondered.

 

“A voice, yes,” Amelia said softly.

 

The Doctor looked around the room until he spied a glass of water on Amelia's nightstand. Dumping the water on the floor, he pressed the glass against the crack and his ear against the glass.

 

“Don't you usually have a stethoscope in your pocket, Doctor?” Rose asked him with a shake of her head. She used a nearby blanket to wipe the water off the floor.

 

Completely engrossed in what he was doing, the Doctor didn't reply, but listened to a voice saying, “Prisoner Zero has escaped.”

 

“Prisoner Zero...?” the Doctor muttered.

 

“Prisoner Zero has escaped,” Amelia quoted the voice. “that's what I heard. What does it mean?”

 

“It means that on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner. And you know what that means?” the Doctor deduced.

 

“What?” Amelia asked him, a little worried.

 

“You need a better wall,” the Doctor said as he moved her dresser out of the way. Jamie took Amelia's hand as they backed away from where his father was working to fix the problem.

 

“The only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut. Or...” the Doctor began to explain, but trailed off when he realized that going any further in his explanation might frighten the children.

 

“Or what?” Amelia pushed.

 

“You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Yes,” she sighed with a roll of her eyes.

 

“Everything's going to be fine,” he told her.

 

“That's very reassuring, love. Should we back away a little more?” Rose asked him as she put an arm around the children's shoulders. Amelia and Jamie were still holding hands.

 

“It's alright, Amelia. Daddy can fix anything,” he reassured her.

 

The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the crack and activated it. The crack suddenly opened wide to show what indeed looked like a prison on the other side. A bright light shone into the room and a giant eyeball appeared in the opening, saying, “Prisoner Zero has escaped.”

 

“Atraxi?” Jamie asked.

 

“Very good, Jamie, yes,” he told his son proudly, then addressed the alien, “Hello? Hello?” There was no response, but a beam of energy shot towards the Doctor's pocket and he doubled over for a moment.

 

“Are you alright, Doctor?” Rose asked him worriedly.

 

The crack shut itself then and the Doctor smiled as he concluded, “There, you see? Told you it would close. Good as new.”

 

“What was that thing? Was that Prisoner Zero?” Amelia asked him.

 

“No. I think that was Prisoner Zero's guard. It sent me a message on my psychic paper, though,” he said as he pulled out the small, black wallet. Reading it, he said, “Prisoner Zero has escaped. But why tell us? Unless...” 

 

“Is it here, Doctor? Did the prisoner escape through the crack?” Rose questioned as she hugged both children a little tighter.

 

“He couldn't have... could he? We'd know...” he mused and looked around. Going out into the hallway, he took in all of the surrounding doorways.

 

“It's difficult. Brand new me. Nothing works yet, but there's something I'm missing. In the corner of my eye,” he said softly.

 

“Like a perception filter?” Rose wondered.

 

The sound of the cloister bell started ringing from the TARDIS outside, breaking his concentration. The Doctor shouted, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” 

 

He grabbed Rose's hand to tug her along behind him as he ran back to the ship. Jamie and Amelia were close behind. There was a light shining from the time ship that was still lying on its side and steam or smoke was flowing out of the open doors.

 

“We've got to get back in there. The engines are phasing. It's going to burn!” the Doctor shouted frantically as he moved the rope they had used to climb out so that it would be better positioned for climbing back down again.

 

“But it's just a box. How can a box have engines?” Amelia protested.

 

“It's not a box! She's our time machine,” Jamie told her proudly.

 

“What, a real one? You've got a real time machine?” she questioned.

 

“Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilized. Five minute hop into the future should do it. I'll need your help, Rose,” the Doctor said as he hopped back up onto the edge of the doorway.

 

“Can I come?” Amelia asked the Doctor.

 

“Not just yet. Five minutes, give me five minutes. We'll be right back,” he told her.

 

“People always say that,” Amelia sighed, sure that she was being blown off.

 

“Amelia, you're my new friend. We're coming back. Promise,” Jamie told her.

 

Amelia considered the freckle faced boy in front of her a moment, then held up her little finger. “Pinky promise?” she asked.

 

“Pinky promise,” he replied and wrapped his little finger around hers. “We WILL come back for you.”

 

The Doctor jumped back into the TARDIS, with a shout of, “Geronimo!”

 

Rose lifted Jamie up to hop back in as well and she climbed up to follow them. “I can't guarantee the five minute part, Amelia. But we will be back,” Rose told her with a smile. She dropped into the ship and the doors shut behind them.

 

Climbing around the console, the little family managed to get their ship to dematerialize and right itself in the Vortex.

 

“Well, that's better! Now, a short hop to pick up our new friend. What do you say?” the Doctor affirmed with a broad smile across his new face. Rose decided that she liked the way his green eyes twinkled in this incarnation and gave him her patented, tongue touched grin.

 

“Yes, please! Amelia's going to be my very best friend!” Jamie shouted and danced around the destroyed console room.

 

As the Doctor worked on the controls, his face suddenly fell. “Oh... oh... I am so thick. I knew I missed something!” he shouted and worked faster to get them back.

 

Jamie stumbled over a piece of broken coral and Rose moved to help him. He had a bit of a scrape, so she reached into her pocket for the bandages that she always kept handy. The Doctor rushed out the door as soon as they landed, without waiting for them.

 

Outside, the sun was shining and the Doctor realized that they had jumped a little further than five minutes. He ran to the back door and unlocked it with his sonic before rushing inside and up the staircase.

 

“Amelia! Amelia, I worked out what it was. I know what I was missing! You've got to get out of there!” he shouted as he ran up the stairs. “Amelia? Amelia, are you alright? Are you there?”

 

He looked at the door that he realized had been hidden by a perception filter and tried the locked handle for a moment. He called to her, “Prisoner Zero is here! Do you understand me?”

 

There was a small creak in the floor behind him, but when he turned to look, a cricket bat smacked him in the head.

 


	2. Eleventh Hour: Part Two

Chapter Two – Eleventh Hour: Part Two

 

 

When he awoke again, he found that he was handcuffed to a radiator in the hall outside of Amelia's room. There was a tall, red headed police woman talking into the radio attached to her uniform.

 

She said, “White male, mid twenties, breaking and entering. Send me some back-up. I've got him restrained. Oi! You, sit still.”

 

“Doctor? Are you in here?” Rose called up the stairs.

 

“Daddy, where are you?” Jamie asked as he ran up towards Amelia's room.

 

Rose and Jamie ran past the police woman to the Doctor's side where he was lying beside the radiator. “Are you alright, love?” Rose asked him and rubbed the bump that had formed on his forehead.

 

“Cricket bat. I'm getting cricket bat,” he said as his eyes cleared.

 

“You were breaking and entering,” the police woman accused.

 

“Yeah, he does that. We're just trying to help,” Rose defended.

 

“Well, that's much better. Brand new me, whack on the head, just what I needed,” the Doctor said with a shake of his head.

 

“Do you two want to shut up now? I've got back up on the way,” the police woman ordered.

 

“Hang on, no, wait. You're a police woman,” the Doctor said in sudden realization.

 

“And you're breaking and entering. You see how this works?” she acknowledged with a wave of her arm.

 

“But what are you doing here? Where's Amelia?” the Doctor protested.

 

“Amelia Pond?” the police woman asked, softly.

 

“Yes, my friend Amelia. She said she'd come with us in our time machine,” Jamie told her.

 

The police woman looked at Jamie with what seemed to be a mixture of shock and sadness. She shook her head and told them, “Amelia Pond hasn't lived here in a long time.”

 

“What?” Jamie asked in horror.

 

“How long?” the Doctor demanded.

 

With a slight pause, as if considering her answer, she replied, “Six months.”

 

“No. No, no, no. I can't be six months late. I said five minutes. I promised... what happened to her? What happened to Amelia Pond?” the Doctor argued.

 

The police woman didn't answer him, but spoke into her radio again, “Sarge, it's me again. Hurry it up. This guy knows something about Amelia Pond.”

 

Rose watched the woman curiously. Her skirt seemed very short for a police woman and she couldn't hear any sort of reply through the radio to even acknowledge her request. Something wasn't adding up.

 

“I need to speak to whoever lives in this house right now,” the Doctor told her.

 

“I live here,” she replied curtly.

 

“But you're the police,” he argued indignantly.

 

“Yes, and this is where I live. Have you got a problem with that?” the police woman replied.

 

Suddenly, Rose realized something important. This woman was Scottish. Red hair, Scottish accent, but Amelia had told them that they were in England, not Scotland.

 

“Are you Amelia?” she interrupted.

 

The woman looked at her with wide eyes.

 

“What?” Jamie gasped.

 

“How many rooms?” the Doctor demanded, ignoring the new line of questions.

 

“I'm sorry, what?” the police woman asked as she shook herself out of the shock of Rose discovering her lie.

 

“On this floor. How many rooms on this floor? Count them for me now,” the Doctor told her urgently.

 

“Why?” the woman questioned.

 

“Because it will change your life,” he replied.

 

“Five. One, two, three, four, five,” she counted as she pointed to each door in turn.

 

“Six,” Jamie told her.

 

“Six?” she said with a confused look on her face when she turned to look at the little boy who hadn't changed a bit from the last time she had seen him. Even his clothes hadn't changed.

 

“Look,” the Doctor told her with a nod in the direction of the hidden door.

 

“Look where?” she asked him.

 

“Exactly where you don't want to look. Where you never want to look. The corner of your eye. Look behind you,” he prompted, knowing it was the only way for her to break through the perception filter.

 

She stared, wide eyed at the door she had never noticed before. “That's... that is not possible. How's that possible?” she denied.

 

“It's called a perception filter. It makes it so that you don't want to look at something,” Jamie replied.

 

“But that's a whole room I've never even noticed,” she said, still in shock.

 

“The filter stops you noticing. Something came a while ago to hide. It's still hiding, and you need to uncuff me now,” the Doctor told her.

 

She walked toward the new door with a dazed look on her face. “I don't have the key, I lost it,” she told him.

 

“How can you have lost it? Stay away from that door! Do not touch that door! Listen to me, do not open that. Why does no one ever listen to me? Do I just have a face that nobody listens to?... Again,” the Doctor shouted after her.

 

The Doctor searched his pockets for his sonic, but couldn't find it. “Jamie, do you have your sonic? I need to unlock this,” the Doctor asked.

 

“Mine doesn't have that setting. You said I wouldn't need it,” he replied.

 

“Wouldn't need to unlock handcuffs? Why wouldn't you need that? That's rubbish!” the Doctor argued. “My screwdriver, where is it? Silver thing, blue at the end. Where did it go?”

 

“There's nothing here,” the woman called from the hidden room.

 

“Whatever's there stopped you seeing the room. What makes you think you could see it? Now please, just get out of there,” he called to her.

 

Rose got up from the floor and headed toward the room to urge her back to relative safety.

 

“Silver, blue at the end?” the woman called back to him.

 

“My screwdriver, yeah,” he replied.

 

“It's here,” she said.

 

“Must have rolled under the door,” he told her.

 

“Yeah. Must have. And then it must have jumped up on the table,” she added.

 

Rose ran into the room and grabbed the slime covered sonic from the table. She tried to pull the woman back out of the room with her, but she was staring at something that had just appeared from the corner of her eye. A giant, slimy, snake-like creature hung from the ceiling and hissed at her through giant, sharp teeth.

 

“Come on!” Rose shouted as she pulled the woman behind her, back towards the Doctor and Jamie.

 

The police woman shut and locked the door as Rose tossed the sonic back to her husband. “Ok, now just get out of here,” he told the police woman as he wrestled with the slimy sonic to open the handcuffs restraining him. “Come on. What's the bad alien done to you?”

 

“Will that door hold it?” the woman asked, not leaving as instructed.

 

“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. It's an inter-dimensional multiform from outer space. They're all terrified of wood,” the Doctor snarked at her.

 

“No need to be nasty, love. Let's just get everyone out of here, yeah?” Rose chastised while keeping an eye on the door.

 

There was a bright light shining from around the door and the woman asked, “What's that? What's it doing?”

 

“I don't know. Getting dressed? Run. Just go. Your backup's coming, we'll be fine,” the Doctor told her.

 

“There is no backup,” she admitted nervously.

 

“I heard you on the radio. You called for backup,” the Doctor argued.

 

“I was pretending. It's a pretend radio,” she explained.

 

“You're a police woman,” he insisted.

 

“I'm a kiss-o-gram!” she shouted as she took off the hat of her costume and her long, ginger hair fell around her shoulders.

 

“What's a kiss-o-gram?” Jamie asked curiously.

 

However, the alien broke down the door at that moment in a burst of light, to reveal a man in overalls with a large, black dog on a chain. Rose pulled Jamie against her and grabbed the Doctor's hand even though he was still chained to the radiator.

 

“But it's just...” the woman began.

 

“No, it isn't. Look at the faces,” the Doctor told her. As the man started barking and growling.

 

“What? I”m sorry, but what?” the woman asked disbelievingly.

 

“It's all one creature. One creature disguised as two. Clever old multi-form. A bit of a rush job, though. Got the voice a bit muddled, did you? Mind you, where did you get the pattern from? You'd need a psychic link, a live feed. How did you fix that?” the Doctor rambled as he continued to fight with his sonic.

 

The man with a dog opened his mouth to reveal large, curved teeth and they all cringed.

 

“Stay, boy! Ok, you know what? We're safe because she sent for backup!” the Doctor told the alien confidently.

 

“I didn't send for backup!” she argued.

 

“I know. That was a clever lie to save our lives. Ok, yeah, no backup. And that's why we're safe. Alone, we're not a threat to you. If we had backup, you'd have to kill us,” the Doctor reasoned quickly.

 

From outside, they suddenly heard a loud voice echoing, “Attention, Prisoner Zero. The human residence is surrounded. Attention, Prisoner Zero. The human residence is surrounded.”

 

“What's that?” the woman asked.

 

“Sounds like backup to me,” Rose replied.

 

“Yeah, ok, one more time. We do have backup and that's definitely why we're safe,” the Doctor declared.

 

“Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated,” the voice outside announced and repeated over and over.

 

“Well, safe apart from, you know, incineration,” the Doctor admitted. After more struggling with his sonic, the Doctor finally freed himself from the handcuffs and the group ran from the house. The Doctor locked the back door behind them, to allow a little more time before the alien caught up.

 

In the back yard, they ran towards the TARDIS. “Kiss-o-gram?” the Doctor asked incredulously.

 

“Yes, a kiss-o-gram. Work through it,” she said.

 

“You are Amelia, aren't you?” Rose insisted.

 

With a mighty sigh, she looked upwards and admitted, “Yes. Alright, yes, I'm Amelia.”

 

“But daddy, we told her five minutes!” Jamie shouted angrily.

 

The Doctor tried and failed to open the door to the TARDIS, and he growled in frustration, “No, no, no, no! Don't do that, not now! She's still rebuilding. Not letting us in.”

 

The voice in the sky continued to repeat its threat of incineration and the alien inside the house was starting to break through the door.

 

“We've got to go!” Amelia told him as she started to pull him away from the house toward the street.

 

“You're Amelia,” the Doctor said, suddenly catching on to the conversation the others were having.

 

“And you're late,” she accused.

 

“Amelia Pond. You're the little girl,” the Doctor told her as if she didn't know.

 

“I'm Amelia and you're late,” she told him angrily.

 

“We didn't mean to!” Jamie cried as he chased the girl that was supposed to be his new best friend.

 

“What happened?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“Twelve years,” she replied.

 

“You hit me with a cricket bat,” the Doctor told her.

 

“Twelve years!” she exclaimed as if that excused it completely.

 

“A cricket bat,” the Doctor reiterated.

 

“Twelve years and four psychiatrists,” Amelia added angrily.

 

“Psychiatrists? What for?” Jamie asked her.

 

“Everyone thought I was crazy,” she told them.

 

“Why four?” Rose queried.

 

“I kept biting them,” she said quickly.

 

“Why?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“They said you weren't real,” she replied.

 

They were interrupted from their discussion by the sound of the voice from earlier threatening incineration. This time it was being broadcast through everything with a speaker. The Doctor rushed to the nearest house to check just how far this broadcast went. Amelia, Rose and Jamie followed closely to see what they could do to help.

 

“Hello! Sorry to burst in. We're doing a special on television faults in this area,” the Doctor told the older woman who was frustratedly trying to get her telly to show something other than the eyeball repeating the ominous warning. Noticing Amelia still wearing her police costume, he added, “Also crimes... Let's have a look.”

 

He flicked through the channels on the TV.

 

“I was just about to phone. It's on every channel. Oh, hello, Amy dear. Are you a police woman now?” the elderly woman asked.

 

“Well, sometimes,” she replied hesitantly.

 

“I thought you were a nurse,” the woman said.

 

“I can be a nurse,” Amelia told her.

 

“Or actually, a nun?” the woman added.

 

Rose stifled a giggle behind her hand. A kiss-o-gram indeed.

 

“Amy, who are your friends?” she asked as she noticed the other people that had come in with her.

 

“Who's Amy? You were Amelia,” the Doctor said over his shoulder.

 

“Yeah? Now I'm Amy,” she curtly replied.

 

“Amelia Pond. That was a great name,” the Doctor argued.

 

“Bit fairy tale,” she told him.

 

“Will you still be my friend, Amy?” Jamie asked and took her hand. She just looked at him sadly, not sure how to respond to the little boy she met so long ago.

 

“I know you, don't I? I've seen you somewhere before,” the elderly woman asked the Doctor.

 

“Not me. Brand new face. First time on,” he replied, stretching his new features experimentally. “And what sort of job's a kiss-o-gram?” he demanded of Amy.

 

“That's what I've been asking,” Jamie interrupted.

 

“I go to parties and I kiss people. With outfits. It's a laugh,” she explained, slightly embarrassed.

 

The Doctor stared at her in open mouthed shock and Rose giggled, unable to hide her amusement any longer.

 

“You were a little girl five minutes ago!” the Doctor chastised Amy.

 

“You're worse than my aunt,” Amy argued.

 

“I'm the Doctor. I'm worse than everybody's aunt. And that is not how I'm introducing myself,” the Doctor told her. He sonicked the radio and listened as the alien warning sounded in multiple languages through the speaker.

 

“Ok, so it's everywhere, in every language. They're broadcasting to the whole world,” the Doctor reported and opened a window to look up into the sky.

 

“Are they going to incinerate the whole planet?” Rose whispered to him as she met his eyes worriedly. He nodded seriously and started to do some calculations.

 

“Ok. Planet this size, two poles, your basic molten core. They're going to need a forty percent fission blast. But they'll have to power up first, won't they? So, assuming a medium sized starship, how long would you say, Jamie?” the Doctor asked as he considered all of the variables.

 

“About twenty minutes?” Jamie calculated.

 

“Yeah, twenty minutes. We've got twenty minutes,” the Doctor agreed.

 

“Twenty minutes to what?” Amy asked.

 

A dark haired man who had entered the room a few moments before, asked suddenly, “Are you the Doctor?”

 

Rose looked at him in surprise.

 

“He is, isn't he? He's the Doctor! Then this must be Jamie! All those cartoons you did when you were little, Amy. It's them!” the elderly woman said happily, satisfied that she figured it out.

 

Amy tried to get her neighbours to shut up about her childhood stories and asked the Doctor again, “Twenty minutes to what?”

 

“The human residence. They're not talking about your house,” the Doctor replied.

 

“They're talking about the planet. The aliens are planning to incinerate the planet,” Jamie concluded.

 

“Twenty minutes to the end of the world. Sounds like a normal day for us, right love?” Rose added with a smile.

 


	3. Eleventh Hour: Part Three

Chapter Three – Eleventh Hour: Part Three

 

 

Looking a little worried, the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and tugged her out the door. He seemed to be doing that a lot today, even more than usual and Rose wondered if he was worried that she wouldn't follow him otherwise. Jamie and Amy ran after them as the Doctor stormed down the road.

 

Rose and the Doctor's bracelets clinked together and suddenly Rose could feel the myriad of worries running rampant through his mind. Worries about whether Rose liked his new incarnation, whether Jamie was angry with him for disappointing Amelia, whether the TARDIS would be alright with her rebuilding and most of all, whether he could indeed save the world in less than twenty minutes. She almost drowned in the onslaught of his emotions and tried to counter his with her own feelings of reassurance and confidence in his abilities. He gave her a small smile, inwardly thanking her for the support.

 

“What is this place? Where are we?” the Doctor directed the question at Amy.

 

“Leadworth,” she replied, slightly out of breath from chasing him.

 

“Where's the rest of it?” he asked.

 

“This is it,” she admitted with a disappointed wave of her arms.

 

“Is there an airport?” he wondered, taking stock of his resources.

 

“No.”

 

“A nuclear power station?”

 

“No.”

 

“Even a little one?” he pleaded hopefully.

 

“No.”

 

“Nearest city?” he asked frustratedly.

 

“Gloucester. Half an hour by car,” she responded.

 

“We don't have half an hour. Do we have a car?” he hoped, but doubted he could even add that to his list of resources.

 

“No,” Amy admitted.

 

“Well, that's good. Fantastic, that is. Twenty minutes to save the world and I've got a post office. And it's shut,” he complained loudly. Rose squeezed his hand and he squeezed back as his eyes focussed on something out of place. “What is that?” he asked as he ran over to what looked like an extremely large mud puddle.

 

“It's a duck pond,” Amy told him.

 

“Why aren't there any ducks?” the Doctor inquired.

 

“I don't know. There's never any ducks,” she countered.

 

“Then how do you know it's a duck pond?” the Doctor reasoned.

 

“It just is. Is it important, the duck pond?” Amy asked him.

 

The Doctor suddenly collapsed in pain and clutched his chest. Rose crouched next to him in support. “What do you need, love?” Rose asked him worriedly.

 

“I don't know. This is too soon. I'm not ready, I'm not done yet,” the Doctor insisted.

 

The sky darkened suddenly as a shadow passed over the sun. Amy asked, “What's happening? Why's it going dark? What's wrong with the sun?”

 

“Nothing. You're looking at it through a forcefield. They've sealed off your upper atmosphere. Now they're getting ready to boil the planet,” the Doctor explained and watched as the surrounding people started to take pictures of the sky with their mobiles. “Oh, and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to, down a video phone.”

 

“This isn't real, is it? This is some kind of big wind up,” Amy accused.

 

“Why would we wind you up?” the Doctor asked her honestly.

 

“You told me you had a time machine,” she replied.

 

“We do, Amy. Don't you believe us?” Jamie asked her.

 

“Hang on! Wait. I missed it. I saw it and I missed it. What did I see?” the Doctor started mumbling to himself as he visually searched the surrounding area. “What did I see? I saw... I saw... I saw...”

 

“That man, Doctor!” Rose shouted and pointed towards someone who wasn't photographing the sky, but another person.

 

“Right-oh, my love!” the Doctor shouted happily and kissed her soundly. “Twenty minutes. I can do it,” he told Rose happily. Turning back to Amy, he said, “Twenty minutes, the planet burns. Run home to your loved ones and say goodbye, or stay and help me,” he said turning back to face Amy.

 

Amy looked at them, considering for a moment. Crossing her arms over her chest, she simply said, “No.”

 

“But Amelia, we need your help. I told you we'd come back! And we did. It wasn't five minutes, but we did come back. You said you would be my friend, you promised!” Jamie shouted at her, tears welling in his eyes.

 

Amy looked down at the boy she had waited for. She had wanted a friend so badly then. She was new to Leadworth at the time and felt so alone. Her heart broke a little for him and she held out her little finger towards him. “Alright... pinky promise.”

 

Jamie smiled at her then and wrapped his little finger around hers. “Pinky promise.”

 

“So, what do we do?” Amy asked the Doctor.

 

With a smile and a nod, he told her, “Stop that nurse.”

 

The group ran through the grass towards a man wearing hospital scrubs and taking a picture on his phone of the man with a dog that they had seen inside Amy's house. The Doctor grabbed his phone and started flipping through the photos on it.

 

“The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?” the Doctor asked him brusquely.

 

“Amy,” the nurse said as he recognized her.

 

“Hi! Oh, this is Rory, he's a friend,” Amy told them.

 

“Boyfriend,” Rory said with a bit of a blush. Jamie huffed a little.

 

“Man and dog. Why?” the Doctor insisted.

 

“Oh my god, it's them,” Rory said in wide-eyed realization.

 

“Just answer the question, please,” Amy urged him.

 

“It's them though... the Doctor and Rose and Jamie,” Rory confirmed.

 

“Yeah, they came back,” she acknowledged.

 

“But it was a story. It was a game,” Rory argued.

 

“We're not a game. We're real people and we promised we'd come back,” Jamie responded and took Amy's hand.

 

Waving his arms in Rory's face, the Doctor pressed, “Man and dog. Why? Tell me now!” He was already on a deadline, this was no time for blogging.

 

“Sorry! Because he can't be here. Because he's...” Rory began, but the Doctor finished the statement with him, “...in a hospital, in a coma.”

 

“Yeah,” Rory added, nodding. He was obviously a little confused about how this fairytale person could have guessed that.

 

“Knew it. Multiform, you see? Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a live feed. A psychic link with a living but dormant mind,” the Doctor explained.

 

The man that Rory had been photographing began to bark and growl at them, just as he had in Amy's house. The Doctor faced him squarely and announced, “Prisoner Zero.”

 

“What? There's a Prisoner Zero, too?” Rory questioned Amy.

 

“Yes,” Amy whispered back to him.

 

In the sky, a large spaceship that looked like a crystal snowflake with a giant eyeball in the centre of it, flew above them. It seemed to be searching ineffectively.

 

“See, that ship up there is scanning this area for non-terrestrial technology. And nothing says non-terrestrial like a sonic screwdriver,” the Doctor proclaimed and activated his sonic, holding it high in the air.

 

All around them, various electronics went haywire. The streetlights exploded, the car alarms were blaring and a fire truck, void of any firemen, went driving down the street with the siren blaring. Several firemen were chasing it down the street and Jamie giggled at the sight.

 

“I think someone's going to notice, don't you?” the Doctor shouted over the noise and Prisoner Zero snarled at him.

 

A nearby telephone box exploded violently and the Doctor's sonic sparked painfully in his hand. He threw it to the ground and it was obviously destroyed. “No, no! No, don't do that!” the Doctor shouted at his beloved gadget as the spaceship seemed to give up its search and flew away.

 

“Look, it's going,” Rory told them.

 

“No, come back! He's here! Come back!” the Doctor shouted ineffectually.

 

“Would my sonic help, daddy?” Jamie asked him, holding up his own little, silver device.

 

“No, thank you, Jamie. They're too far off now. We'll need to find another way,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“Doctor! Prisoner Zero just sort of melted and went down the drain over there,” Amy informed him.

 

“Well, of course it did,” the Doctor sighed.

 

“Can't make it too easy on us. What's next, love?” Rose asked him.

 

“It's hiding in human form. We need to drive it into the open. No TARDIS, seventeen minutes...” the Doctor trailed off in thought.

 

“Pictures?” Jamie suggested to his father.

 

“Pictures... pictures... phone... coma patients...” the Doctor mumbled to himself as he thought.

 

“So how come you show up again on the same day that lot do? The same minute?” Amy accused them, pointing at the receding spaceship.

 

“They probably followed us. They sent daddy a message on his psychic paper when the crack was open, maybe they could track that message,” Jamie postulated.

 

“Good idea, Jamie,” the Doctor said as he ruffled the boy's hair. “Nurse boy, give me your phone.”

 

“How can they be real? They were never real!” Rory protested still looking in confusion between Amy and the Doctor's family.

 

“Phone. Now. Give me,” the Doctor demanded, his hand held out impatiently.

 

“Would mine help, love?” Rose suggested. The Doctor shook his head negatively and snatched the phone from Rory's hands.

 

“These photos, they're all the coma patients?” the Doctor confirmed as he scrolled through the photos and Rose realized why it had to be Rory's mobile that he used.

 

“Yeah,” Rory confirmed.

 

“No, they're all the multiform. Eight comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero,” the Doctor explained.

 

“He had a dog, though. There's a dog in a coma?” Amy questioned.

 

“Well, the coma patient dreams he's walking a dog, Prisoner Zero gets a dog,” the Doctor said distractedly as he toyed with the phone, then suddenly spun to face Amy. “Laptop! Your friend at the house, what was his name?” the Doctor asked her suddenly as he recalled the dark haired man who recognized him as the Doctor, was carrying a computer bag.

 

“Jeff,” she replied.

 

“He had a laptop in his bag. A laptop. Big bag, big laptop. I need Jeff's laptop. You two, take Rose and get to the hospital. Get everyone out of the ward with the coma patients. Clear the whole floor. Rose, contact me when you're done,” he added, tapping his temple. He pulled her in for a quick, but fierce kiss. Then, he took Jamie's hand and raced back to the house where they had met Jeff.

 

Bursting back into the house again, the Doctor and Jamie found Jeff's room fairly quickly. The Doctor went straight in without knocking and the shocked look on Jeff's face made it clear that he was not expecting company at the moment.

 

“Hello. Laptop. Give me,” the Doctor ordered the surprised man reclined on the bed with his laptop perched in front of him.

 

“No, no, no, no, wait!” Jeff protested, but the Doctor had already snatched up the machine.

 

“It's fine, give it here,” he said as he turned it to face himself. “Blimey... get a girlfriend, Jeff. And, Jamie, you didn't see any of that!” the Doctor added, blushing slightly.

 

“I'm not even sure what that was,” Jamie told him, shaking his head.

 

“Good,” the Doctor replied as he began typing frantically.

 

The elderly woman they had spoken to before entered and Jeff greeted her as his grandmother. “What are you doing?” she asked the Doctor.

 

“The sun's gone wibbly, so right now, somewhere out there, there's going to be a big old video conference call. All the experts in the world panicking at once, and do you know what they need? Me. Ah, and here they all are. All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore,” the Doctor explained as he continued to work on the computer.

 

“I like Patrick Moore,” Jeff's grandmother mentioned fondly.

 

“I'll get you his number. But watch him, he's a devil,” the Doctor replied, wagging his finger at her.

 

“You can't just hack in on a call like that,” Jeff protested.

 

“Can't I?” the Doctor challenged as he proceeded to do just that.

 

On the screen, several faces showed up, currently in some discussion. The Doctor flashed his psychic paper in front of the camera as they all protested the unknown man interfering in their call. “Hello, yeah, I know you should switch me off. But before you do, watch this...” the Doctor told them as he proceeded to share with them several scientific proofs and formulae that current scientists hadn't worked out yet. “Whoever I am, I'm a genius. Look at the sun. You need all the help you can get. Fella's, pay attention.”

 

The Doctor proceeded to write a computer virus on Rory's mobile that was very clever, super fast, and a tiny bit alive. His goal for hacking into this phone call was to convince these people to help him distribute the virus around the world, as quickly as possible. Leaving Jeff with the instructions to convince them to do it (with the promise that he would then have connections to the most powerful people in the world then, and perhaps some career opportunities along with those connections).

 

The Doctor then took Jamie by the hand, and they went to find a firetruck they could borrow.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Once Amy, Rory and Rose got to the hospital, they rushed inside, only to be met by a wall of people they couldn't get through. Even being a nurse at the hospital wouldn't get Rory through the mob. Rose thought for a moment about a solution, then smacked herself on the forehead.

 

“What?” Amy asked, wondering at Rose's odd reaction.

 

“Think about what you're wearing, Amy,” Rose pointed out with a smirk.

 

“Ha ha! Uniform, you're right,” she said as she tucked her hair back under the hat of her costume. She then confidently cleared a path for them through the mob of people.

 

When they arrived on the floor where the coma ward was located, everything looked deserted and a bit of a mess. Surprisingly though, a woman appeared, holding the hands of two young girls.

 

“Officer,” the mother said, acknowledging Amy.

 

“What happened?” Amy asked her.

 

“There was a man. A man with a dog. I think Doctor Ramsden's dead. And the nurses,” the mother reported calmly.

 

Turning to Rose, Amy said, “Prisoner Zero is here.”

 

Rose nodded and thought to her husband,  _“We're in the hospital, but the staff have probably been killed. Prisoner Zero is here.”_

 

“ _We're on our way, love,”_ the Doctor replied.

 

“He was so angry. He kept shouting and shouting. And that dog. The size of that dog, I swear it was rabid. And he just went mad, attacking everyone,” the voice of the mother said, but Rose, Amy and Rory stared in shock as the voice came from the mouth of one of the children.

 

“Oh, I'm getting it wrong again, aren't I? I”m always doing that. So many mouths,” the mother said with her voice back in her own mouth. She threatened them all though when she opened her mouth to reveal sharp, alien teeth.

 

“Oh my god!” Rory cried and they ran into the room with the coma patients, barring the doors with a broom through the handles.

 

“Hang on, I'm contacting the Doctor,” Rose told Amy and Rory who were looking around frantically for some way to escape.

 

“ _We're in the coma ward, but Prisoner Zero has found us and is trying to get in,”_ Rose thought to him.

 

“ _Which window are you?_ ” he asked her in reply.

 

She shook her head, knowing the kind of antics he would get up to.  _“First floor, on the left, fourth from the end. See you soon,”_ she told him.

 

The broom broke and Prisoner Zero entered, still disguised as the mother and children. “Oh, dear little Amelia Pond. I've watched you grow up. Twelve years, and you never even knew I was there. Little Amelia Pond, waiting for her special friend with his magical mummy and daddy to return. But not this time, Amelia,” the woman taunted.

 

“Oh yeah, that's what you think,” Rose sneered at her. Behind them, the window suddenly smashed as a ladder came crashing through it. The Doctor and Jamie entered, careful not to cut themselves on the broken glass and moved to stand next to Rose.

 

“Right! Hello. Am I late?” the Doctor asked as he looked up at the clock on the wall. “No, three minutes to go. So, still time.”

 

“Time for what, Time Lord?” Prisoner Zero asked mockingly.

 

“Take the disguise off. They'll find you in a heartbeat. Nobody dies,” the Doctor told her, giving her a chance to call it all off.

 

“The Atraxi will kill me this time. If I am to die, let there be fire,” she replied evilly.

 

“Ok. You came to this world by opening a crack in space and time. Do it again. Just leave,” he suggested.

 

“I did not open the crack,” Prisoner Zero told him.

 

“Somebody did,” he said, unsure of who would be capable of such a thing.

 

“The cracks in the skin of the universe, don't you know where they came from? You don't, do you?” she asked him, then switched to the voice of a child as she teased, “The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know. Doesn't know! Doesn't know!”

 

Switching back to her adult voice, she warned him, “The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.”

 

Unhappy with her statements, but unsure what to do about any of it just yet, the Doctor allowed himself to get back to the matter at hand as he saw the clock behind Prisoner Zero change to read 0:00.

 

“And we're off! Look at that. _Look at that!_ ” he told her, happily pointing at the clock. “Yeah, I know, just a clock. Whatever. But do you know what's happening right now? In one little bedroom, my team are working. Jeff and the world. And do you know what they're doing? They're spreading the word all over the world, quantum fast. The word is out. And do you know what the word is? The word is Zero. Now, me, if I was up in the sky in a battleship, monitoring all Earth communications, I'd probably take that as a hint. And if I had a whole battle fleet surrounding the planet, I'd be able to track a simple old computer virus to its source in, what, under a minute? The source, by the way, is right here,” he babbled, indicating the source as Rory's mobile in his hand.

 

A bright light abruptly shone through the windows then, as the spaceships surrounded the hospital.

 

“Oh, and I think they just found us!” the Doctor said excitedly.

 

“The Atraxi are limited. While I'm in this form, they'll still be unable to detect me. They've tracked a phone, not me,” Prisoner Zero argued venomously.

 

“Yeah, but this is the good bit. See, Jamie suggested it, my brilliant boy,” the Doctor said, ruffling Jamie's hair. “I mean, this is my favourite bit. Do you know what this phone is full of? Pictures of you. Every form you've learned to take, right here. Ooo, and being uploaded about now. And the final score is, no TARDIS, no screwdriver, two minutes to spare! Who da man?! .... Oh, I'm never saying that again. Fine,” the Doctor sighed, only slightly deflated by his word choices. Rose giggled a bit and patted his shoulder lovingly.

 

“Then I shall take a new form,” Prisoner Zero threatened.

 

“Oh, stop it. You know you can't. It takes months to form that kind of psychic link,” the Doctor chastised the alien for even suggesting it.

 

“And I've had years,” she smugly said as she suddenly changed form and Amy collapsed onto the floor.

 

Jamie immediately ran to her side and started shouting, “Amy! Amy! Hold on, daddy will fix it!”

 

The Doctor, Rose and Rory all looked up to see a young Amelia Pond holding hands with Jamie.

 

“But... but if you're linked with her, why are you copying Jamie?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“I'm not. Poor Amy Pond. Still such a child inside. Dreaming of her long lost friend, who promised he'd come back. What a disappointment your family has been for her,” Prisoner Zero taunted.

 

“No... no, she's dreaming about Jamie because she can still hear him. Amy! Listen to us, Amy. Remember the room, the room in your house you couldn't see. Remember you went inside. Amy, dream about what you saw in that room!” the Doctor shouted at the unconscious woman.

 

Jamie repeatedly told her to dream about the alien she saw as they waited for something to change.

 

Prisoner Zero, disguised as young Amelia began to shout, “No. No. No!!” She transformed then, into the slimy snake-like creature and a bright light surrounded it suddenly.

 

“Well done, Prisoner Zero. A perfect impersonation of yourself,” the Doctor announced proudly.

 

“Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall,” Prisoner Zero hissed at him before disappearing in a transport beam.

 

The sky cleared as the spaceships began to leave and the Doctor started typing into Rory's phone again.

 

Looking out the window, Rory said, “The sun. It's back to normal, right? That's, that's good, yeah? That means it's over.”

 

As Amy began to stir on the floor, Rory and Jamie both helped her up and checked to make sure she was alright.

 

“What are you up to now, love?” Rose asked the Doctor.

 

“Tracking the signal back. Sorry in advance,” he added towards Rory.

 

“About what?” Rory questioned in confusion.

 

“The bill,” he said quickly, then turned his attention to his phone call that just connected. “Oi! I didn't say you could go! Article fifty seven of the Shadow Proclamation. This is a fully established level five planet, and you were going to burn it? What? Did you think no one was watching? You lot, back here, now!” he shouted into the phone and snapped it closed. “Ok, now I've done it,” he said with some satisfaction.

 

The Doctor took Rose's and Jamie's hands and marched down the hallway with a purpose. Amy and Rory followed after them, looking a bit dazed.

 

“Where are you going?” Amy asked urgently.

 

“The roof. No... hang on,” he added as he turned into a locker room.

 

“What's in here?” Amy wondered as he began to throw articles of clothing around that he found scattered about the room.

 

“I'm saving the world. I need a decent shirt. Time to put on a show,” he said with a flourish. Rose giggled and Jamie shook his head in embarrassment.

 

“You just summoned aliens back to Earth. Actual aliens, deadly aliens, aliens of death, and now you're taking your clothes off,” Rory rambled uncomfortably.

 

“Yeah, excuse us,” Rose said as she guided the Doctor into a change room before he got too far with stripping off his old clothing. “My eyes only, dear,” she chastised.

 

Amy, Rory and Jamie waited for the couple to exit the change room as patiently as they could, while knowing that the Atraxi would be back on the roof at any moment. When they reappeared, the Doctor was wearing a fresh shirt, a different pair of trousers, red braces and had a number of ties draped around his neck. He had also put on a pair of boots, quite different from his preferred trainers of before. Rose was carrying a few more ties and a few jackets as she followed him. The Doctor made his way purposefully toward the stairs that would take them to the roof.

 

When they reached the roof, the Atraxi ship was already waiting for them.

 

Amy asked nervously, “So this was a good idea, was it? They were leaving.”

 

“Leaving is good. Never coming back is better,” he said to her before turning back to the large crystal-encased eyeball. “Come on, then! The Doctor will see you now!” he shouted towards the spaceship.

 

The eyeball in the centre of the ship dropped down in front of him. Rose and Jamie stood by his side confidently as the Atraxi scanned each of them.

 

“You are not of this world,” they announced.

 

“No, but I've put a lot of work into it,” the Doctor replied as he sorted through the ties he had brought with him. “Oh, hmm... I don't know, what do you think, dear?” he asked Rose, holding up a few different ties.

 

“Is this world important?” the Atraxi asked.

 

“Important?! What's that mean, important? Six billion people live here. Is that important? Here's a better question. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi? ... Well, come on. You're monitoring the whole planet. Is this world a threat?” the Doctor demanded of them.

 

A projection of Earth's history and news appeared in front of the small family and flashed quickly before the Atraxi admitted, “No.”

 

“Are the peoples of this world guilty of any crime by the laws of the Atraxi?” the Doctor demanded further.

 

The projection flashed more pictures before the answer came, “No.”

 

“Ok. One more. Just one. Is this world protected? Because you're not the first lot to come here. Oh, there have been so many,” the Doctor told them and the pictures began to show many of the alien species that the Doctor had thwarted over the centuries.

 

“And what you've got to ask is, what happened to them?” he asked the floating eye finally.

 

The images in front of them changed to show each of the Doctor's incarnations through the years. As it reached the Doctor that Rose had first met, she noticed that suddenly, she was there by his side and in the image displaying the man he had been only hours before, she was there as well, with Jamie as a baby. Together, they stepped through the picture, a united front protecting the Earth, with the Doctor now wearing a red bow tie and brown tweed jacket.

 

“Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is my family. Basically, run,” he ordered the aliens.

 

Without another word, the giant eye retracted into the snowflake ship. The ship slowly turned and left the planet.

 

Rose suddenly felt the key around her neck growing hotter and she pulled it out of her shirt by the chain to see it glowing brightly. The Doctor started laughing at the sight, grabbed the hands of his wife and son as they ran back down through the hospital and toward their beloved time ship.

 

“Ok, what have you got for us this time?” he asked as he opened the door.

 

They entered together and looked around in wonder at the transformed space. The room that had been grungy and organic and a little bit thrown together, was now a golden space of glass and gleaming metal.

 

“Look at you! Oh, you sexy thing! Look at you,” the Doctor breathed.

 

“Oi! You know I'm sure we can find you a couch to sleep on tonight!” Rose teased him in mock jealousy over his adoration of the ship.

 

“You love it too,” he said with a nudge.

 

“Yeah, yeah I do. What about you, Jamie? What do you think of our lovely TARDIS?” Rose wondered.

 

“This is brilliant!” he shouted and ran around the room to investigate everything.

 

In their mutual excitement, they dematerialized for a quick trip to the moon, to try out the new controls and run the engines a little. As they stood by the open doors, looking out at the Earth from the moon, however, Jamie gasped.

 

“We forgot about Amy! We were supposed to take her with us!” Jamie cried as he ran back to the console.

 

“Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll go back and ask her if she'd like to come for a trip with us,” Rose told him reassuringly.

 

“Absolutely, but before we do that. I haven't had a chance to ask you... what do you think?” the Doctor said as he posed slightly in front of his wife, preening slightly.

 

Rose tilted her head, considering for a moment. Teasing him a little, she said, “Different.” She gave him her tongue touched smile then and he chuckled at her.

 

“Good different or bad different?” he obligingly replied.

 

“Just different,” she said and hugged him as she looked into his new eyes and finally ran her fingers through his thick hair. “I love your eyes. But I've got to say, Doctor, I think your gob this time around might rival even the last one.”

 

Jamie sighed at his parents' flirting and asked, “Can we go get Amy now, please?”

 

When they opened the door after rematerializing in Amy's back yard, they noticed that it was nighttime again. “Dad! You said we'd be right back before she even noticed that we were gone!” Jamie growled in frustration.

 

“Oops,” he said in apology as he leaned against the outside of the TARDIS.

 

Amy came running out the back door, still wearing a nightgown and robe. She looked at the family disbelievingly as she approached them.

 

“Sorry about running off earlier. Brand new TARDIS. Bit exciting, just had a quick hop to the moon and back to run her in. She's ready for the big stuff now,” the Doctor explained.

 

“It's you. You came back,” Amy said, slightly accusingly.

 

“Of course we came back! We promised we would,” Jamie said as he took her hand again.

 

“And you kept the clothes,” Amy added.

 

“Well, I just saved the world. The whole planet, for about the millionth time, no charge. Yeah, shoot me, I kept the clothes,” he informed her, a little irritated with her tone.

 

“Including the bow tie,” she said, a teasing smile creeping past her annoyance.

 

“I like it. Bow ties are cool,” Rose said as she straightened it slightly. He preened a bit under her praise.

 

“Are you from another planet?” Amy asked them, thinking no one from Earth would possibly think that bow ties were in any way attractive.

 

“Yeah,” the Doctor told her frankly.

 

“Well, he is... of course, I've not lived on Earth for... well, a while,” Rose added with a smirk.

 

“Ok,” Amy responded, obviously taking this new information into consideration.

 

“So, what do you think?” he asked her.

 

“Of what?” she wondered.

 

“Other planets. Want to check some out?” the Doctor clarified.

 

“What does that mean?” Amy asked him.

 

Jamie squeezed her hand and said, “Come with us. You said you wanted to before.”

 

She looked down at him and steeled herself slightly as she told them, “All that stuff that happened. The hospital, the spaceships, Prisoner Zero... that was two years ago.”

 

“Uh... _oops_ ,” the Doctor said embarrassed by his lousy driving again.

 

She sighed and shook her head. “When I was a kid, you said there was a swimming pool and a library, and the swimming pool was in the library,” she recalled.

 

“Yeah. It's not supposed to be in the library, and no, Jamie, we're not keeping it there. Not sure where it's got to now, but it'll turn up. So, coming?” the Doctor asked again.

 

“No,” Amy told him.

 

“But...” Jamie protested.

 

“I grew up,” she interrupted, looking at Jamie sadly.

 

“Don't worry. I'll soon fix that,” the Doctor replied and snapped his fingers. 

 

The door to the TARDIS popped open and Amy walked inside, curiously. Jamie grabbed her hand again and pulled her up the stairs to look around.

 

“Isn't it brilliant? It didn't look quite like this before, but it got all broken when daddy changed his face. What do you think of it, Amelia?” Jamie asked her as she gaped at the giant room.

 

“I'm in my nightie,” Amy realized.

 

“Don't worry, we've got a whole wardrobe full of clothes,” Rose told her with a smile.

 

“So, all of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will.... where do you want to start?” the Doctor asked her as he flipped a few of the controls on the console.

 

“You are so sure that I'm coming,” Amy stated and crossed her arms over her chest.

 

“Aren't you? I know you'll love it, Amy,” Jamie said to her as he activated the controls that he was responsible for.

 

“Can you get me back for tomorrow morning?” Amy asked the Doctor.

 

“It's a time machine. I can get you back five minutes ago. Why, what's tomorrow?” the Doctor said, as if he hadn't just skipped fourteen years of her life inadvertently already.

 

Rose gave him a pointed look that he knew was meant to remind him of twelve hours turning to twelve months, but she didn't interrupt their conversation, lest Amy lose trust in them even more.

 

“Nothing. Nothing. Just... you know, stuff,” Amy replied a little too quickly.

 

“Alright then, back in time for stuff,” the Doctor told her, letting her keep her secrets. They didn't really concern him anyway.

 

A sonic screwdriver popped out of a hole in the console. It was much larger than his last one. It was brass and white and the light on the end was green instead of blue. “Oh! A new one! Lovely. Thanks, dear,” the Doctor said as he patted the time rotor.

 

“Oi! If it's so easy to get one of those, where's mine?” Rose protested.

 

“Well, I've got mine. Why would you need to have one?” the Doctor defended himself.

 

“For all the times that you disappear and I have to wait for you to come find me again,” Rose said and put her hands on her hips.

 

“Well... I....” the Doctor began, but with the sound of a bell, another sonic screwdriver appeared.

 

This sonic was pink and purple, with a blue light. It was clearly meant for Rose and she giggled as she picked it up. She patted the time rotor herself and skipped away happily. The Doctor rolled his eyes and sent silent thanks to the ship for getting him out of that argument before Rose followed through with the threat of him sleeping on the couch... again.

 

“Why me?” Amy asked suddenly, interrupting the slightly domestic scene.

 

“Why not?” the Doctor responded as he slipped the new sonic into his pocket.

 

“No, seriously. You are asking me to run away from my life in the middle of the night. It's a fair question. Why me?” Amy insisted.

 

“Because you're our friend,” Jamie replied.

 

“Just that? I'm your friend, so you're taking me to see the universe?” she asked.

 

“Just that. And maybe save a few planets along the way,” Rose told her as she moved to her place at the console.

 

“So, are you ok then? Because this place, sometimes it can make people feel a bit... you know,” the Doctor checked to be sure Amy was alright with coming along now.

 

“I'm fine. It's just, there's a whole world in here, just like you said. It's all true. I thought... well, I started to think that maybe you were just like a madman with a box,” Amy told them.

 

“Amy Pond, there's something you'd better understand about me. My family knows it and it's important, and one day your life may depend on it. I am definitely a madman with a box,” he admitted and Rose laughed at her husband. He returned her smile and together with his family, he took Amelia with them to see the universe.

 


	4. Bedtime

Chapter Four – Bedtime

 

When they entered the Vortex, Rose moved to halt her husband's movements.

 

“I think, we'd best take a break first, love. Judging from Amy's attire, we woke her up. Jamie last slept on the floor while tied up and I last slept on the floor of a Vinvocci salvage ship. I think we could all use a little sleep before we're running for our lives, yeah?” Rose suggested. Her husband was about to protest, but Rose sent him a rather powerful wave of lust through their bond and he nodded dumbly.

 

“Right, yes!” he agreed as he clapped his hands and twirled on the spot. “Bedtime for everyone. Jamie, the TARDIS will let you know where your room is now and she'll also let you know where to direct Amy to a room as well. Breakfast in, oh... about six hours I'd say. Then we'll be off. Yes? Good. Goodnight then,” he called after them as they headed up one staircase and Rose pulled him up another towards where the TARDIS had relocated their room.

 

“Fine. This way, Amy. We'll find you a room,” Jamie pouted and led his friend towards their rooms.

 

Amy smiled at him, remembering what it was like to be seven years old. She had been very independent as a child. Her aunt often left her alone in the house, so bedtime wasn't strictly enforced. She pondered just how strict Jamie's parents were and suspected he was allowed quite a bit of freedom. They stopped in front of a door that had a little sign hanging on it. The sign said 'Amy' in bright green letters.

 

“Were you planning on having me stay here already?” Amy asked.

 

“No, she just made the room for you now, I hope you like it,” Jamie told her as he opened the door and went inside to look around.

 

“What do you mean she just made it?” she said confusedly.

 

“The TARDIS is alive. She makes all the rooms and things for us. She made this room for you when you decided to come along. Look! You've got bunk beds!!” Jamie told her as he ran to jump on the bottom bunk that was perpendicular to the top one.

 

Amy laughed at his behaviour and agreed, “That is pretty cool. Alright, young man, off to bed with you and we'll see what kind of trouble we can get into in the morning.”

 

“Ok,” he sulked as he bounced off of the bed. “I wonder if my room has changed. I want bunk beds too. Goodnight, Amy!”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

As soon as they reached their room, Rose pushed the Doctor up against the closed door and snogged him thoroughly. He was surprised and a little bit flustered by the intensity of her actions, but he certainly wasn't going to say no to his beloved wife. So he wrapped his new arms around her waist and pulled her tightly against him.

 

Rose tugged at his thick hair as she ground her hips against his new frame. Things lined up a little differently now. He was slightly shorter than before, but still quite a bit taller than her. Still slim, but it was all just... different. The prospect of exploring those differences though, was exciting. She grabbed the end of his bow tie in her teeth and tugged it loose. The look the Doctor gave her at that was incendiary.

 

In moments, they had torn each other's clothes off and tumbled together on their bed. The Doctor was kissing and touching and licking Rose everywhere as he experienced the wonders of her with his new senses. He found his tongue wasn't quite as agile as before, his sense of taste a little less sharp, but he couldn't get enough of touching every bit of her with his hands and he could hear the blood rushing through her veins as her heart rate increased.

 

Nuzzling her breasts while she ran her fingers through his hair, the Doctor easily slipped two long fingers into her and she groaned her approval. He wrapped his legs around one of hers as he pleasured his wife. Their minds connected and he could feel her love for this new him as well as the grief of losing his past incarnation. He understood her feelings and revelled in her acceptance of his change.

 

Rose cried out in ecstasy and rolled on top of him. She took him in hand, and rubbed him several times in exploration before she placed him at her entrance and sank down upon him. His eyes closed and his mouth dropped open as his hands gripped her hips tightly. Rose stayed still for a moment as they savoured the feeling of joining their bodies as well as their minds.

 

It was the Doctor who finally urged movement. He thrust up into her and guided her movements with his hands on her hips. Rose curled around him and kissed his bare chest as she took some time to explore his new body. He looked so young, probably as young as she looked (although that was only because she apparently hadn't aged at all since her experience as the Bad Wolf), she wondered if her presence had anything to do with his new apparent age.

 

Rose cried out when the Doctor began to massage her clit with his fingers as she rode him. She sat above him and threw her head back as he continued to touch her and when she began to clench her muscles around him, he slowed his movements until she came back to coherence. When her eyes opened and met his, he flipped them over so that she was beneath him and began a pounding rhythm as he chased his own release within her.

 

She whispered words of love and devotion through his mind and he felt the last vestiges of cloudiness from his regeneration slip away. In the loving arms of his wife, the Doctor found exactly where he belonged. They hadn't yet worked out what had changed her physiology or how long it would last, but he knew that he wanted to keep her with him until his dying day. He returned her words of devotion through mental whispers and caresses that touched her very soul.

 

He could feel her pleasure rising again and changed the angle of his hips to bring her along with him. Rose wrapped her legs around his waist and grabbed the headboard over her to give her leverage to meet his thrusts with equal force. It was barely a moment later, when they both tumbled over the precipice and collapsed next to each other.

 

With gentle kisses and whispers of, “I love you,” they both fell asleep. Content that the prophesies that had been haunting them were past. They could move on now, with the life they were used to; raising their son and saving the universe.

 


	5. The Beast Below: Part One

Chapter Five – The Beast Below: Part One

 

After a lovely breakfast of banana pancakes, Jamie wanted to show Amy one of his favourite things. So, with the Doctor holding onto Jamie's foot and Rose holding onto Amy's ankle, the two friends were floating in space, just outside the TARDIS doors.

 

“Now, do you believe us, Amy?” Jamie asked her with a huge grin.

 

“Ok, your box is a spaceship. It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space! What are we breathing?” she replied nervously as they were pulled back to the floor, just inside the doors.

 

“I've extended the air shell. We're fine,” the Doctor assured her.

 

Looking out the doors, they saw a huge city flying through space. There was a large Union Jack painted on the outside of the city-ship.

 

“Now that's interesting. Twenty-ninth century, solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out until the weather improves. Whole nations!” the Doctor tells them as he runs to the console to find them a place to land inside the ship.

 

Rose settles Jamie and Amy back inside and closes the doors.

 

“This one is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it, bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. That's not just a ship, that's an idea! That's a whole country, living, and laughing, and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home,” the Doctor lectured.

 

“Can we go out and see?” Amy asked him.

 

“Please, daddy! Do they have an amusement park there?” Jamie wondered, always looking for new rides.

 

“Of course we're going to see! That's what we do. As for the amusement park, Jamie... Let's go exploring first, alright?” Rose told them as she ruffled her son's hair.

 

“Ok, the most important rule of the Time Lords was to never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets. Ooh, that's interesting...” the Doctor trailed off as he checked the monitor to see what was going on outside the ship.

 

“And that is the one rule that we absolutely NEVER follow, right sweetheart?” Rose said to Jamie with a smile.

 

“Right, mummy! Rules are boring,” Jamie replied and started running for the doors.

 

When they exited the TARDIS, all of the travellers took some time to scan their surroundings. Except for the Doctor, who headed straight for the little girl he had seen crying on the monitor. The girl got up and left, but the Doctor kept an eye on her as he joined the group to explore.

 

“I'm in the future. Like hundreds of years in the future. I've been dead for centuries,” Amy said as she pondered the situation.

 

“Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one,” the Doctor replied.

 

“At least the first place he took you wasn't to watch the end of the world,” Rose said jokingly and the Doctor elbowed her ribs.

 

“Never mind dead, look at this place! Isn't it wrong?” the Doctor asked them.

 

“What's wrong?” Amy countered.

 

“Let's find out! We're detectives now and we notice everything,” Jamie told her confidently as he began to take in the clues around him. 

 

“Is it the bicycles? Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles,” Amy suggested.

 

“I'd be more worried if they had cars in an enclosed space like this,” Rose told her.

 

“Now, come on, look around you. Actually look,” the Doctor encouraged them.

 

“It's very dirty here, and we're on a spaceship in the future but they're using wind up clockworks to power things?” Jamie noticed.

 

“Very good, Jamie. Life on a giant starship. Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look even closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me,” he added to a couple at a café table as he took one of their water glasses and put it on the floor. 

 

He crouched down in front of it and looked closely at the water. Jamie and Rose looked as well and were just as concerned as the Doctor. Amy was new to space travel, but they knew that all engines should give off some kind of vibrations.

 

The man he had taken the glass from protested, “What are you doing?”

 

“Sorry. Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish. Where was I?” the Doctor excused himself as he returned the glass and they continued walking.

 

“Why did you just do that with the water?” Amy asked him.

 

“Don't know. I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now, police state. Do you see it yet?” the Doctor redirected the conversation while he considered the possible explanations to his observations.

 

“Where?” Amy asked. 

 

Jamie watched in awe as his father pulled together all the clues like a proper detective and tried to follow along adamantly. He wasn't sure why his father didn't mention the lack of engine vibrations to Amy, but maybe he was testing her or something.

 

“There,” the Doctor told her, pointing to the little girl that was still crying. The group of them sat on a bench nearby to watch her.

 

“One little girl crying. So?” Amy wondered.

 

“Crying silently. I mean, children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that,” the Doctor explained.

 

Rose continued the observations now, “Hundreds of parents are walking past. They look at her, but not one of them is asking what's wrong, which means they know what's wrong. They're not helping, so it's something that scares them.”

 

“Secrets. Shadows. Whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state,” the Doctor concluded.

 

“You mean the government is scaring them? Controlling them or hurting them?” Jamie asked, trying to understand why the people would allow it.

 

“Possibly. We're going to find out,” the Doctor told them.

 

“Where'd she go?” Amy asked when she noticed the little girl had disappeared.

 

“Deck two oh seven. Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner, detectives. Oh, er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere,” the Doctor instructed as he handed Amy a colourful wallet and pointed out the robotic faces that seemed to be watching everyone as they passed by.

 

“But they're just things,” Amy argued.

 

“But they're clean. Everything else here is filthy, I said it before. No one touches them and no one goes anywhere near them. We need to find out why people are afraid of them, right?” Jamie deduced.

 

“Right you are, detective. Now, you and Amy, stick together and follow that lead. Your mum and I have another mystery to solve. Meet back here in half an hour,” the Doctor told them as he took Rose's hand and pulled her along to find the engine room.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Jamie and Amy entered the elevator and requested deck two oh seven to look for Mandy.

 

“Is it always like this? Your life as a time traveller,” Amy asked.

 

“Not always. Mum and dad have been keeping our trips really safe and educational most of the time lately, but just before we met you, he said that things were going to change. That we would get back to saving the universe the way he and mum used to before I was born. I think that means I'm old enough to handle it more now,” Jamie told her. His father hadn't mentioned looking into the Vortex again; he should probably remind him later.

 

“And they trust me enough to keep an eye on you while we explore a spaceship?” Amy wondered at the responsibility of babysitting for this family that didn't really know her.

 

“Actually, I think they trust me to know spaceships enough to keep you safe,” he replied with a wink. “Besides, I can contact mum and dad telepathically if anything goes wrong.”

 

“That's handy. Well, let's find this little girl, yeah?” Amy asked as the elevator doors opened.

 

They walked through an empty looking hallway in search of the girl they had seen earlier. She was wearing a bright red coat, so it shouldn't be difficult. Mandy apparently decided to find them first, however, as she stepped out from behind a pile of crates to confront them.

 

“You're following me. Saw you watching me at the marketplace,” Mandy accused them.

 

“You dropped this,” Amy said as she handed back the little girl's wallet.

 

“Yeah, when your friend kept bumping into me,” Mandy replied, her frustration apparent.

 

“What's that?” Amy inquired when they saw an area sectioned off with flashing lights and barriers.

 

“There's a hole. We have to go back,” Mandy told them abruptly.

 

“A what? A hole?” Amy wondered and headed towards the barricade.

 

“Like a hole to the outside of the ship?” Jamie asked her.

 

“No, a hole in the road. Are you stupid? We can't go that way. There's a travel pipe down by the airlocks, if you've got stamps. What are you doing?” she asked as Jamie joined Amy in going through the barriers to check out the forbidden area.

 

“Oh, don't mind us. Never could resist a keep out sign. What's through there? What's so scary about a hole? Something under the road?” Amy conversed with her as Jamie used the new setting on his sonic to open the padlock on the tent covering the work area.

 

“Nobody knows. We're not supposed to talk about it,” Mandy told them warily as she backed away from them slightly.

 

“About what?” Amy asked.

 

“Below,” Mandy told them, barely above a whisper.

 

“Just because you're not supposed to talk about it, means that you don't ask any questions? What kind of life is that?” Jamie asked her as he pulled open the flaps keeping them from seeing what was being hidden.

 

“Stop! You mustn't do that!” Mandy shouted at them fearfully.

 

Amy and Jamie crawled into the tent and found a wind up torch so they could see. In front of them was a large, black tentacle with a talon-like stinger on the end. Jamie could faintly hear some kind of screaming sound from it, but Amy didn't seem to notice it, so he just filed the information away for later.

 

“Oh my god... that's weird,” Amy gasped.

 

“Cool!” Jamie exclaimed as he scanned it with his sonic.

 

The tentacle started swinging towards Amy and the pair backed out of the enclosed space. Once outside, they found themselves surrounded by several tall men in long, black robes.

 

Jamie quickly sent a thought to his parents,  _“I think we're about to get ourselves arrested for exploring where we shouldn't.”_

 

But before he could get a reply, two men pointed their rings at Amy and Jamie which emitted a gas to knock them unconscious.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“So, we're trusting Amy with Jamie?” Rose asked her husband as they climbed down the ladder toward the engine room.

 

“Oh, I'm sure he'll keep her in line,” the Doctor replied as he watched his wife descend from above him.

 

“You're entrusting our seven year old to keep the twenty-one year old in line?” Rose questioned with a raised eyebrow.

 

“He has plenty of experience in our lifestyle to keep our new companion on track, don't worry. Now, what is going on with the engines of this ship?” he replied and tried to get back on track with the mystery they were investigating.

 

“I knew that was what the water was about. I've never heard of an engine that didn't cause some kind of vibrations,” she said as she joined him at the base of the ladder.

 

The Doctor was feeling the walls and scanning things with his screwdriver. “That's because there aren't engines like that.... it can't be....” he told her as he checked all around them.

 

Rose noticed a glass of water on the floor in the middle of the room and crouched down to look at it. Wondering who might have put it there, she noticed someone was standing on the other side of the glass and tapped the Doctor's leg beside her as she looked up. There was a woman wearing a long burgundy robe and a white porcelain-looking mask in front of them.

 

“The impossible truth in a glass of water. Not many people see it. But you do, don't you, Doctor?” the woman asked.

 

“You know me?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “They're everywhere. Tell me what you see in the glass,” the woman insisted.

 

“Who says we see anything?” he said evasively.

 

“Don't waste time. At the marketplace, you placed a glass of water on the floor, looked at it, then came straight here to the engine room. Why?” she pressed, her impatience growing.

 

“No engine vibration on deck. Ship this size, engine this big, you'd feel it. The water would move. Any experienced space traveller would know that. So, I thought I'd take a look,” the Doctor explained and began to open up the electrical boxes nearby.

 

In each of the boxes, the cables were disconnected. “These power couplings, they're not connected. Look. Look, they're dummies, see? And behind this wall, nothing. It's hollow,” he said as he knocked on the wall to prove his point and they heard an echo sounding behind it.

 

“If I didn't know better, I'd say there was...” he began and the woman completed the statement with him, “...no engine at all.”

 

“But it's working,” Rose protested. “We saw the ship travelling through space before we came on board.”

 

“The impossible truth, Doctor, Rose. We're travelling among the stars in a spaceship that could never fly,” she told them.

 

“How?” the Doctor asked her.

 

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a mental shout from Jamie,  _“I think we're about to get ourselves arrested for exploring where we shouldn't.”_ The Doctor and Rose looked at each other worriedly. They were about to send a thought back to him when they suddenly felt him fall unconscious. 

 

“I don't know. There's a darkness at the heart of this nation. It threatens every one of us. Help us, Doctor, Rose. You're our only hope. Your son and your friend are safe,” she assured them, knowing what would happen to them already. “This will take you to them. Now go, quickly!” she added as she handed them a handheld computer.

 

“Who are you? How do I find you again?” the Doctor called after her while Rose looked at the map tracking Jamie and Amy's location.

 

“I am Liz Ten, and I will find you,” the woman called as she hurried down the hallway away from them.

 


	6. The Beast Below: Part Two

Chapter Six – The Beast Below: Part Two

 

Jamie sat on the bench where he had been instructed to wait. Mandy was sitting with him. They had been told that Amy was in the room across from them where she was watching a video and being allowed to vote about something. His parents were on their way here as well.

 

“What's she voting about?” Jamie asked Mandy.

 

“I don't know exactly. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to see the film and make your choice. To protest or to forget. Then again, once every five years,” she told him.

 

“And you said everyone chooses to forget?” he wondered what could possibly be so horrible that everyone would constantly choose to forget about it.

 

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

 

The Doctor and Rose arrived just then and immediately hugged Jamie tightly. 

 

“Where's Amy? What did you find out?” the Doctor urged him.

 

“She's in there,” he told his father with a nod towards the door. “She's being shown some film and allowed to vote on something. Mandy says everyone has a choice to either protest or forget, but everyone chooses to forget.”

 

“Forget?” the Doctor repeated with a furrowed brow. “Alright, what did you two find that got you into trouble to begin with?”

 

“There was a hole in the road. We broke into the area to take a look at it and there was a huge, black tentacle thing sticking right up out of the floor. It started swinging at us and we backed away, that's when they knocked us both unconscious and brought us here,” Jamie explained.

 

“So there's some kind of creature under the floors?” Rose asked, her mind racing with ideas about how this might be connected to the lack of engines.

 

Just then, the lighted sign over the door where Amy was changed from 'Occupied' to 'Empty'. The Doctor and Rose rushed through the door to find a slightly dazed looking Amy Pond. She was looking disbelievingly between her hand and the brightly lit 'forget' button.

 

The Doctor scanned a device mounted to the ceiling with his sonic as Jamie wandered into the room as well. “Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes,” the Doctor declared.

 

“But why would I choose to forget?” Amy questioned.

 

“Well, according to Mandy, everyone chooses forget,” Rose told her.

 

“Did you?” the Doctor asked Mandy.

 

“I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve,” she replied.

 

“Well, I'm certainly old enough. My turn,” Rose said and sat in the chair. The computer refused to acknowledge her, however.

 

“The computer doesn't recognize you as human anymore, love. It won't even play for us,” the Doctor told her. “Ok, Mandy, you might want to step back out there. What we're about to do might be a teensy bit exciting. Hold tight. We're bringing down the government,” he informed them and struck the 'protest' button.

 

The door slammed shut, the robot in the booth changed from smiling to a frightening scowl, and the floor began to open beneath them. Rose grabbed the hands of the Doctor and Jamie as the small family grinned at each other in excitement. This was what they lived for. Amy, however, just looked scared out of her mind. They all screamed as they plunged through the open floor.

 

The Doctor and Rose were thrown out of a chute into a slimy, smelly pool of garbage. Jamie fell next, followed by Amy.

 

“Argh! High speed air cannon. Lousy way to travel,” the Doctor announced as he helped the others to their feet.

 

“You take me to the loveliest places, Doctor. I think you might owe me a beach after this,” Rose told him as she wrung the liquid from her hair.

 

“Where are we?” Amy asked disgustedly, slinging slime everywhere as she tried to brush herself off.

 

“Six hundred feet down, twenty miles laterally, puts us at the heart of the ship. I'd say Lancashire. What's this then, a cave? Can't be a cave. Looks like a cave,” the Doctor rambled as he went through the known facts.

 

“Doesn't feel like a cave,” Jamie added as he jumped up and down a bit on the squishy floor.

 

“It's a rubbish dump, and it's minging!” Amy cried as she held her nose.

 

“Yes, but only food refuse. Organic, coming through feeder tubes from all over the ship,” the Doctor noticed as he examined what they were standing in.

 

“Feeder tubes? Feeding what?” Rose questioned nervously. “Why do I suddenly feel like we're in Star Wars?”

 

Jamie looked at his mother like she just dribbled on her shirt, “This isn't a garbage smasher, mum.”

 

“The floor's all squidgy, like a water bed,” Amy commented as she stepped around experimentally.

 

“Oh no. Don't tell me...” Rose groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

“Yeah. It's not a floor, it's a....” the Doctor trailed off.

 

“It's a what?” Amy prompted him to continue.

 

“The next word is kind of a scary word. You probably want to take a moment, get yourself in a calm place. Go ooommmm,” the Doctor told her.

 

She played along and made the calming noise as she raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to tell her what the floor was.

 

Jamie sighed and rolled his eyes. “It's a tongue,” he told her.

 

Amy's eyes went wide as she looked from Jamie to the Doctor and back again. “A  _tongue_ ?” she yelped.

 

“A tongue. A great big tongue!” the Doctor confirmed, now seeming slightly excited by the prospect.

 

“Only _you_ would be happy about this,” Rose moaned.

 

“This is a mouth. This whole place is a mouth?” Amy asked, still not believing this was possible. Star Wars, indeed.

 

“Yes, yes, yes... but on the plus side, roomy!” the Doctor told her, looking on the bright side of their situation.

 

“So, how are we getting out of this mouth, Doctor? I'd rather not end up as lunch,” Rose said, grabbing him by the shoulders.

 

“How big is this beastie? It's gorgeous,” he continued to ramble, but a quick shake from Rose and he refocussed on the matter at hand. “Yes, right. Ok, it's being fed through surgically implanted feeder tubes, so the normal entrance is... closed for business,” he concluded as they all turned to see a wall of massive interlocking teeth blocking their escape.

 

Just then, the floor began to move. The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand to steady her so she wouldn't slip and fall.

 

“Umm... it's started,” the Doctor told them nervously.

 

“What's started, love?” Rose questioned, knowing it was something bad; it always was.

 

“Swallow reflex,” he replied with some embarrassment at their situation.

 

“We'd best do something then, dad. I'd rather not get swallowed today,” Jamie told him.

 

“Right! Jamie, Rose, setting five hundred and six, aim down,” the Doctor told them as he began sonicking the tongue beneath them. Rose and Jamie did as instructed.

 

“What does this do?” Rose asked.

 

“We're vibrating the chemo-receptors,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Oh no,” Jamie groaned. “This is gonna be awful!”

 

“Chemo-what?” Amy questioned worriedly.

 

“The eject button,” the Doctor informed them with a cringe.

 

“Oh, you so owe me after this,” Rose told him.

 

“How does a mouth have an eject button?” Amy asked, still not understanding.

 

“Think about it!” the Doctor insisted.

 

The floor shifted again and there was a loud rumbling noise. They looked up to see a large wave coming towards them.

 

“Right then, this isn't going to be big on dignity. Geronimo!” the Doctor shouted. Rose and Jamie wisely closed their mouths and eyes rather than yelling.

 

The Doctor was the first to recover from their unorthodox escape and he quickly checked Rose, Jamie and Amy for injuries before he went about the task of finding a way out of wherever they had ended up.

 

As the others came around, he helped Rose to her feet and informed them all, “There's nothing broken, no signs of concussion and yes, you are covered in sick.”

 

“Lovely,” Rose groaned sarcastically.

 

“Where are we?” Amy asked as she took in their surroundings. They were in a dimly lit, hallway. The walls and ceiling were round, as if they were inside a pipe and there was a hole in the ceiling right above them that they likely fell through.

 

“Overspill pipe, at a guess,” the Doctor replied quickly, scanning the door with his sonic.

 

“Oh god, it stinks,” Amy complained.

 

“That's not the pipe I'm afraid. Which way to the showers?” Rose grumbled.

 

Amy grimaced as she sniffed herself.

 

“Is that the only door, dad?” Jamie asked as he noticed the button to open it.

 

“One door, one door switch, one condition. We forget everything we saw,” he told them with a gesture toward the single button labelled 'forget.'

 

“Not bloody likely,” Rose scoffed and crossed her arms.

 

“Well, that's the carrot. Ooo, here's the stick,” he observed as there were two booths with the robot faces inside at the other end of the hall. The lights above them suddenly turned on to draw attention to them. “There's a creature living in the heart of this ship. What's it doing there?” the Doctor demanded of the robots.

 

Rather than answer, the robot faces turned to show a frowning face rather than a smiling one.

 

“No, that's not going to work on me, so come on. Big old beast below decks, and everyone who protests gets shoved down its throat. That how it works?” the Doctor continued interrogating the machines.

 

The faces then turned from frowns to threatening scowls.

 

“Oh stop it. I'm not leaving and I'm not forgetting, and what are you fellows going to do about it? Stick out your tongues, huh?” the Doctor taunted the things.

 

“You just had to ask that, didn't you? You've been at this for centuries and you haven't learned not to ask things like that?” Rose chastised him as she backed away from the booths with a hand on Jamie's shoulder.

 

The booths opened then, and the robots stood up to step out towards the small group.

 

“Umm, dad...” Jamie began worriedly.

 

Just then, the woman from earlier, in the long burgundy cape appeared from behind them and confidently shot both of the robots. She twirled her gun and slipped it back into the holster on her hip. This time, she was not wearing her mask. They could see that she had dark skin and long, dark, curly hair.

 

“Look who it is. You look a lot better without your mask,” the Doctor greeted her.

 

“Thank you, is what he meant to say,” Rose added with a sigh of relief.

 

“Doctor, Rose, and you must be Jamie and Amy. I'm Liz, Liz Ten,” the woman replied.

 

“Hello,” Jamie said with a small wave.

 

“Hi,” Amy greeted.

 

Liz took in their appearance and said, “Yuck. Lovely hair, Amy. Shame about the sick.”

 

“How did you find us?” Rose questioned.

 

“Stuck my gizmo on you. Been listening in. Nice moves on the hurl escape. So, what's the big fella doing here?” Liz asked them, hoping they could figure out the mystery that had her vexed.

 

“You're over sixteen, you've voted. Whatever this is, you've chosen to forget about it,” Jamie said slightly accusingly and crossed his arms.

 

“No. Never forgot, never voted, not technically a British subject,” Liz countered as she began leading them down the hallway out of there.

 

“Then who and what are you, and how do you know my family?” the Doctor asked her pointedly.

 

“You're a bit hard to miss, love. Mysterious stranger, M.O. consistent with higher alien intelligence, and well Rose never changes. I've been brought up on the stories. My whole family was,” Liz Ten informed them.

 

“Your... family?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“What do you mean I never change?” Rose questioned nervously. They still hadn't worked out what was going on with her physiology. Would she be like Jack now?

 

Turning to look back at the robots, Liz noticed that they were not as badly damaged as she had hoped. “They're repairing. Doesn't take them long, let's move,” Liz deflected and urged them to hurry their pace. 

 

Picking up where she'd left off, Liz listed what she knew about them, “The Doctor, old drinking buddy of Henry Twelve. Took his family for tea and scones with Liz Two. Vicky was a bit on the fence about you two, weren't she? Knighted and exiled you both on the same day. And I won't even comment on Liz the First!”

 

Rose groaned and rolled her eyes at the mention of what happened with Elizabeth the First. Jamie had been too young to remember any of that adventure, thank goodness.

 

“Liz Ten,” the Doctor said in sudden realization that this was the Queen he was talking to.

 

“Liz Ten, yeah. Elizabeth the Tenth. And down!” she shouted and they all crouched to the floor as Liz turned to shoot the robots following them again. “I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule.”

 

“Cool,” Jamie said with a broad smile.

 

They all got up from the floor and started following her again. Going through a doorway, they noticed several of the large, black tentacles behind a metal grate. The Doctor stopped to examine them for a moment.

 

“There's a high-speed Vator through there. Oh, yeah. There's these things,” Liz Ten informed them when she noticed what they were looking at. “Any ideas?”

 

“Those are just like the one Amy and I saw, dad. I took some readings on my sonic, they seem to be threading through the whole ship,” Jamie told the Doctor as he pulled up the information on his small, silver device. Jamie flinched slightly at the sounds he faintly heard again from the creature and wondered why it didn't seem to bother the humans at all.

 

The Doctor looked at Jamie's sonic, then took some scans of his own to compare. “It's all one creature, the same one we were inside. It's reaching out. It must be growing through the mechanisms of the entire ship,” the Doctor deduced.

 

“Oh my god! You don't mean..?” Rose began with a horrified look at her husband. There were no engines, but there was a giant creature threaded through the whole ship. Somehow she knew, this creature was being used to power their journey through space. And the truth of it was so horrible, that everyone chose to forget.

 

“What, like an infestation? Someone's helping it. Feeding it. Feeding my subjects to it. Come on. Got to keep moving,” Liz growled angrily and stormed ahead of them again.

 

The Doctor looked sadly at Rose, confirming that his thoughts matched her own. Jamie could feel their sadness and asked, “It's not the creature that's attacking them, is it?”

 

“What do you mean?” Amy questioned.

 

“Oh, Amy. We should never have come here,” the Doctor despaired, rubbing his hands over his face.

 

“Don't you dare say that, Doctor! We are here to help, just like always, yeah? Making the tough decisions because no one else will. They all choose to forget about it; stick it under the rug. Well, that's about to change,” Rose argued and marched after the Queen.

 

“She's right, dad. We can help, come on,” Jamie said and they followed after Liz and Rose.

 

They followed the Queen to her chambers. On the floor were dozens of glasses of water and several candles. The room was large and ornately decorated, as befitted royalty.

 

“Why all the glasses?” Rose asked her curiously.

 

“To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what,” Liz replied sadly. She reclined on her bed as they discussed the problem.

 

“A Queen going undercover to investigate her own kingdom?” the Doctor queried.

 

“Secrets are being kept from me. I don't have a choice. Ten years, I've been at this. My entire reign, and you've achieved more in one afternoon,” Liz grumbled in frustration.

 

“How old were you when you came to the throne?” the Doctor asked her. It was time to establish some facts about how long these things had been going on. Liz only looked to be in her thirties and she claimed to already be at this for ten years.

 

“I was forty. Why?” Liz responded.

 

“What, you're fifty now? No way,” Amy said incredulously.

 

“Yeah, they slowed my body clock. Keeps me looking like the stamps,” she explained proudly.

 

The Doctor examined the mask she had been wearing earlier and noticed how worn it looked. “And you always wear this in public?” he asked her.

 

“Undercover's not easy when you're me. The autographs, the bunting,” Liz told him.

 

“Yeah, I can imagine. The royals had a hell of a time with that when I was back on Earth,” Rose commented.

 

“Air-balanced porcelain. Stays on by itself, because it's perfectly sculpted to your face,” the Doctor postulated, looking to her to confirm this.

 

“Yeah? So what?” Liz responded, wondering what that had to do with their problem.

 

“Oh, Liz. So everything,” the Doctor told her as if the facts should be obvious to someone as bright as her.

 

Several men dressed in long, black cloaks entered the room and demanded that the Queen go with them to the Tower due to her interest in the interior workings of Starship UK. She protested their authority to make demands of her, but in the end, they all went to the Tower together. It was time for everyone to discover the truth and never allow it to be forgotten again.

 

Entering the area referred to as “the Tower,” there was an elderly gentleman who seemed to be in charge, several children doing some kind of work and a large laser-type thing repeatedly firing at an unknown target.

 

“Ma'am,” the elderly gentleman greeted Liz when she entered.

 

“Hawthorne. So this is where you hid yourself away. I think you've got some explaining to do,” Liz told him, surprised to see someone she trusted behind the secrets.

 

“There's children down here. What's all that about?” the Doctor questioned worriedly.

 

“Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. You're very lucky, although it could have to do with having the boy with you,” Hawthorne informed them.

 

“For what we had to do to get out of there? I doubt it was that,” Rose countered.

 

“Yeah, look at us. Torture chamber of the Tower of London. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Except it's not a torture chamber, is it? Well, except it is. Except it isn't. Depends on your angle,” the Doctor rambled.

 

The Doctor moved to see exactly what was being zapped by the laser and the others gathered to look as well. The hole seemed to be an opening to an exposed section of a large brain. Jamie looked horrified and Rose buried her face in the Doctor's lapel as he wrapped an understanding arm around her shoulders. He knew she had worked out that they were using the creature to power the ship, but seeing just how poorly they were treating it, was too much.

 

“What's that?” Liz asked, still not understanding.

 

“Well, like I say, it depends on the angle. It's either the exposed pain centre of big fella's brain, being tortured relentlessly...” the Doctor informed her.

 

“Or?” Liz Ten prompted him to continue.

 

“Or it's the gas pedal, the accelerator. Starship UK's go faster button,” the Doctor concluded.

 

“I don't understand,” Liz told them, denying the obvious.

 

“What's not to understand?! There are no engines. You've got a giant creature living at the heart of the ship, you're feeding it, you're torturing it, and nobody wants to remember just how awful the truth is once they find out!” Rose raged at them from her husband's side.

 

“This is where you hurt it, day after day, just to keep it moving. Tell you what. Normally, it's above the range of human hearing. This is the sound none of you wanted to hear,” the Doctor said as he moved to one of the large tentacles and used his sonic to translate the sound of the creature's screams to a frequency that the humans could hear.

 

“Stop it! Who did this?” the Queen demanded.

 

“We act on instructions from the highest authority,” Hawthorne replied sadly.

 

“I am the highest authority. The creature will be released, now,” she ordered, but none of the staff moved to obey. “I said now! Is anyone listening to me?”

 

“Liz. Your mask,” the Doctor hinted, though he was sure she still didn't realize the connection.

 

“What about my mask?” Liz asked him.

 

“Look at it. It's old. At least two hundred years old, I'd say,” the Doctor pointed out.

 

“Yeah? It's an antique. So?” she wondered what the problem was with that. She had plenty of antique things.

 

“Yeah, an antique made by craftsmen over two hundred years ago and perfectly sculpted to your face. They slowed your body clock, alright, but you're not fifty. Nearer three hundred. And it's been a long old reign,” the Doctor informed her.

 

Jamie was trying to get some of the children to talk to him, but they all stayed silent and got on with their work. He pondered why the creature would be willing to eat the adults, but not the children. It didn't make sense unless it was aware of what it was eating and made a conscious decision. He continued to ponder this information as he moved to see what his parents were doing.

 

“Nah, it's ten years. I've been on this throne ten years,” Liz protested.

 

“Ten years. And the same ten years, over and over again, always leading you here,” the Doctor told her as he led her over to a monitor similar to the one in the voting room. Only the buttons here said 'forget' and 'abdicate.'

 

Liz turned to look at Hawthorne, who was obediently following her, and asked him, “What have you done?”

 

“Only what you have ordered. We work for you, Ma'am, all of us,” he replied calmly, as if he had been through this explanation several times before.

 

The screen activated and a video played. It was a recording of Liz Ten explaining the situation to herself. The creature inside the ship was called a Star Whale. Legends had told them that the creatures used to help guide early space travellers through the asteroid belts. When the Earth was burning, everyone was panicking and the children screamed in terror. The Star Whale arrived then and the people decided to trap it and use it to take them away. The choice presented to the Queen was to allow the voyage to continue by pressing the 'forget' button, or release the creature by pressing 'abdicate' and the ship would disintegrate.

 

Everyone was silent as they absorbed the information from the video. It was finally Rose who broke the silence, “Why are you so sure that those are the only two outcomes?”

 

“What do you mean?” Liz asked, unsure of how there could be any other options.

 

“Why make yourself forget, for one thing? But for another, why are you so sure that if you leave the creature alone, it would abandon you here?” Rose asked, wondering how people could end up so closed-minded.

 

“It won't eat the children!” Jamie cried, suddenly realizing what it meant. “The video said that the Star Whale came when your children were screaming. What if you didn't need to trap it?”

 

“Can we talk to it, Doctor? Can we ask the Star Whale what it wants to do?” Rose pleaded with him.

 

The Doctor looked at them warily. He couldn't allow the creature to continue suffering from their torture. He also couldn't bear to kill everyone on board Starship UK. Lobotomizing the creature had been what he thought would be the most humane action, but they were right that the creature might actually choose to help these people.

 

“Dad, you give all of our enemies a choice and a chance, what about our friends?” Jamie asked him with imploring eyes.

 

“And what alternatives do we offer? We can try to talk with it. I'm not sure how detailed that communication will be, but if we do, what do we say?” the Doctor asked. This society seemed to be big on democracy, so why not let them decide.

 

“Just ask it why it went to Earth, make sure it understands the situation, and see what it tells us from there?” Rose suggested.

 

“Alright. See what it tells us,” Liz told him. She seemed resigned to her fate as the family that she had been told stories about all her life, were questioning the decisions she had been so adamant about before.

 

“I might need your help, Rose, Jamie. We have a point where we can make contact here, if you wouldn't mind turning off the big zappy thing,” the Doctor told them as he guided his wife and son toward the exposed section of brain. Hawthorne adjusted several controls and the laser stopped its firing pattern.

 

Kneeling beside the opening, the Doctor positioned Jamie between himself and Rose. The adults placed their fingertips on either side of Jamie's temples and their other palm flat on the brain. Jamie placed both hands on the slimy brain tissue. The trio closed their eyes and reached out to the suffering creature.

 

Communication with the Star Whale involved the transfer of emotions and images and sounds. Together, they expressed their sorrow about how it had been treated as well as their desire to help. The Star Whale shared with them the memory of hearing the children of Earth crying out for help and choosing to rescue them. It was clear that its decision had not changed despite their misunderstanding. Assured of the passengers' safety, the Doctor, Rose and Jamie thanked the lonely creature for its enduring compassion and forgiveness. Then broke off the connection.

 

When they opened their eyes, all three were shedding happy tears and smiling broadly.

 

Rose stood and moved to take the hands of Liz Ten in her own. “It chose to rescue you. The Star Whale wants to help you, even now, after everything you've done to it. It is still willing to take you safely to find a new home, but please, treat it nicely,” Rose implored the Queen sincerely.

 

“Our speed has increased!” Hawthorne announced.

 

“Yeah, well, you've stopped torturing the pilot. Got to help,” Amy said suddenly, deciding that she had been quiet for far too long. But she was amazed by her newfound friends. She had dreamed all her life of what would happen when they finally came back and now she could see that they were even more amazing than she could have imagined. Amy wondered if she could be more help next time; if she could be as useful a member of the team as they were.

 

“There will be no more secrets on Starship UK. All of the citizens will know what we did and how grateful we are to this magnificent creature,” Liz told them earnestly.

 

When there was no one looking, they slipped away, leaving Liz Ten to take care of the cleanup.

 

Rose and the Doctor swung their clasped hands happily between them as Jamie and Amy followed them back through the marketplace to where the TARDIS was parked.

 

“Shouldn't we say goodbye? Won't they wonder where we went?” Amy called to the Doctor ahead of them.

 

“For the rest of their lives. Oh, the songs they'll write,” the Doctor mused and Rose giggled. “Never mind them. Big day tomorrow,” he told her, he never did like to hang around for the after parties.

 

“Sorry, what?” Amy asked, suddenly sounding nervous.

 

“Well, it's always a big day tomorrow. We've got a time machine. I skip the little ones,” the Doctor explained.

 

“So many Saturdays, so little time,” Rose mused happily and he grinned at her goofily.

 

“It's just... you know what I said about getting back for tomorrow morning? Have you ever run away from something because you were scared, or not ready, or just... just because you could?” Amy wondered.

 

“Once, a long time ago,” the Doctor told her thoughtfully.

 

“What happened?” Amy asked curiously.

 

“Hello,” he said simply. Rose laughed and Jamie shook his head, walking past them into the TARDIS.

 

“Right,” she said, realizing that his whole life was just running. “Doctor, there's something I haven't told you. No, hang on... is that a phone ringing?” Amy interrupted herself when she heard the distinctive noise coming from inside the time machine.

 

“Dad! It's the Prime Minister!” Jamie shouted from the console.

 

The Doctor, Rose and Amy joined him by the time rotor. “Which Prime Minister?” the Doctor asked his son.

 

“Which Prime Minister? ... Well, obviously the British one, you don't sound Canadian. Which British one?” Jamie asked into the handset that was attached to the console with a coiled wire. “Winston Churchill.”

 

The Doctor took the phone from his son and happily spoke to the man on the other end, “Oh! Hello, dear. What's up?”

 

“Tricky situation, Doctor. Potentially very dangerous. I think I'm going to need you,” Winston told him urgently.

 

“Don't worry about a thing, Prime Minister. We're on our way,” the Doctor told him and hung up the receiver as they piloted the ship towards the London Blitz.

 


	7. Victory of the Daleks: Part One

Chapter Seven – Victory of the Daleks

 

“Are you sure we won't bump into ourselves? Or Jack?” Rose questioned her husband as they piloted the TARDIS to meet with Churchill.

 

“Oh, I'm sure we'll be fine, love. The TARDIS is very good at avoiding herself in general and we weren't here for very long the last time. Not to mention, we never went anywhere near Winston Churchill during that trip,” the Doctor replied reassuringly.

 

They landed with the usual thump and everyone headed towards the doors. The Doctor halted them for a moment. “We are in a war zone, so just let me check things out first, alright?” he cautioned.

 

The Doctor carefully opened one of the doors and bravely stepped out in front of three soldiers pointing rifles at him. The soldiers step aside to allow the Prime Minister to approach.

 

“Come on out, everyone,” the Doctor called over his shoulder and Rose, Jamie and Amy emerged from the time ship as well. “Rose, Jamie, Amy? May I present Winston Churchill.”

 

“Doctor. Is it you?” Churchill asked, not recognizing the face in front of him.

 

“Oh, Winston, my old friend,” the Doctor beamed and reached out to shake his hand. Winston put out his hand as well, but instead of shaking, he motioned for the Doctor to give him something. “Ah, every time,” the Doctor chastised.

 

“What's he after?” Amy questioned.

 

“TARDIS key, of course,” the Doctor answered and clasped his wife's hand.

 

“Don't think so, Prime Minister,” Rose admonished.

 

“Think of what I could achieve with your remarkable machine, Doctor. The lives that could be saved,” Churchill pleaded as he puffed on a large, smelly cigar.

 

“Ah, doesn't work like that,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Must I take it by force?” he threatened with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Oi! I thought you were calling us for help?” Rose bristled. The soldiers behind the Prime Minister tensed at her tone.

 

“Don't worry about it, dear,” the Doctor told her and kissed her knuckles. “I'd like to see you try, Winston,” he directed toward the Prime Minister.

 

“At ease,” Churchill ordered the armed soldiers.

 

“May I present, my lovely wife, Rose. This is our son, Jamie. And, of course, our friend, Amy. You rang?” the Doctor said, getting straight to the point.

 

Churchill nodded and began to lead them down the hallway as they continued to talk. Jamie made sure the TARDIS doors were tightly shut before following, a little worried by the previous conversation.

 

“So, you've changed your face again,” Winston commented.

 

“Yeah, well, had a bit of work done,” the Doctor admitted with a gentle pat to his new face.

 

“Hang on, he knows about all that?” Rose interrupted.

 

“Yes, well, this is certainly not the first time we've met, love. Oh, I think this would be three or four times now. When I look different every time, someone is bound to catch on to the process,” the Doctor explained. “Incidentally, Winston, if you happen to meet me again and I don't have Rose and Jamie with me, please don't mention them, yeah?”

 

“Alright. You're late, by the way,” he scolded the Doctor.

 

Someone approached Churchill with some forms to sign and informed him, “Requisitions, sir.”

 

“Excellent,” he replied as he took the offered pen.

 

“Late?” the Doctor asked the Prime Minister.

 

“I rang you a month ago,” he complained.

 

“Really? Sorry, sorry. Rose and I came to the Blitz before, might have had to avoid ourselves and a friend of ours,” the Doctor replied.

 

They watched as Churchill encouraged a despairing young lady, worried about her boyfriend, and followed him up to the roof when he insisted that there was something they should see.

 

“We stand at a crossroads, Doctor. Quite alone, with our backs to the wall. Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp with both hands anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi menace,” Churchill informed him as they all entered the lift to the roof.

 

“Such as?” the Doctor questioned suspiciously.

 

“Follow me,” Churchill replied simply.

 

Rose and the Doctor shared a look before following him. Amy and Jamie were close behind as they took in their surroundings. There were piles of sandbags, several soldiers keeping watch and one man, wearing a white lab coat, was watching the sky with binoculars.

 

“Wow,” Amy commented as she looked out over an unfamiliar view of London.

 

“Doctor, this is Professor Edwin Bracewell. Head of our Ironsides Project,” Churchill said in introduction.

 

The Doctor gave him a V for Victory salute and Rose added a small wave of her own.

 

“How do you do?” the scientist responded politely.

 

Looking out over London, they saw barrage balloons everywhere and could hear bombs in the distance. A soldier over the radio reported on incoming planes.

 

“Oh, Doctor. Doctor ... it's...” Amy stuttered speechlessly as she took in the war zone, realizing where she was and more importantly... when she was.

 

“Brings back memories, that's for sure,” Rose commented to her husband. He gave her a half smile and squeezed her hand as they both thought about Nancy, her son Jamie, and the time when they first met Jack.

 

“History,” the Doctor told Amy succinctly.

 

“Ready, Bracewell?” Churchill called out.

 

“Aye, aye, sir. On my order... fire!” Bracewell shouted into a small radio.

 

They watched in shock as an energy weapon fired and destroyed each of the oncoming planes with a single shot. Rose and the Doctor tensed immediately and gripped each other's hands tightly in support.

 

“What was that?” Amy cried.

 

“They shouldn't have that,” Jamie added with wide eyes.

 

“That wasn't human. That was never human technology. That sounded like... Show me! _Show me! Show me what that was!!_ ” the Doctor shouted to Bracewell and Churchill.

 

“Advance,” Bracewell ordered calmly.

 

“Our new secret weapon. Ha!” Churchill announced victoriously.

 

A Dalek rolled out from behind piles of sand bags to the shock and horror of the Doctor and Rose. Jamie hadn't met one before, but he had heard enough descriptions of them to know that this was a nightmare. The Dalek was painted in a khaki green and had utility belts and military labels all over it.

 

“What do you think? Quite something, eh?” Winston asked the Doctor proudly.

 

The Doctor stormed over to the Dalek angrily, Rose was equally furious by his side.

 

“What are you doing here?” he demanded of the thing.

 

“I AM YOUR SOLDIER,” the alien responded.

 

“ _What?_ ” the Doctor asked incredulously.

 

“Bollocks!” Rose shouted.

 

“I AM YOUR SOLDIER,” it insisted.

 

“Stop this. Stop now. Now, you know who I am. You always know,” the Doctor seethed.

 

“YOUR IDENTITY IS UNKNOWN,” the Dalek replied.

 

“Oh yeah? Well how about me? I destroyed your emperor AND Davros. You wanna mess with the Wolf?” Rose shouted as she gripped her husband's hand painfully.

 

“Perhaps I can clarify things here. This is one of my Ironsides,” Bracewell interrupted.

 

“ _Your what?_ ” the Doctor asked, looking at Bracewell like he had just proclaimed himself a lunatic. It would have made more sense.

 

“You will help the Allied cause in any way that you can,” Bracewell addressed the Dalek.

 

“YES,” the Dalek responded.

 

“Until the Germans have been utterly smashed,” the scientist continued.

 

“YES.”

 

“And what is your ultimate aim?” Bracewell asked it.

 

“TO WIN THE WAR,” it answered.

 

Needing a moment to think and regroup, the Doctor requested that they go back to Churchill's office to discuss this away from the hearing range of the Dalek itself. Jamie stayed close to his parents as he watched the passing Daleks warily. Amy didn't understand what the issue was and decided to just follow along for now.

 

When they were behind closed doors in Winston's office, the Doctor paced worriedly and tried to explain.

 

“They're Daleks. They're _called_ Daleks,” he insisted to the Prime Minister.

 

“They are Bracewell's Ironsides, Doctor. Look. Blueprints, statistics, field tests, photographs. He invented them,” Churchill told him as he spread his proof across the desk.

 

“Invented them? Oh, no, no, no,” the Doctor denied as he paced furiously and fidgeted with his hands as seemed to be his new reaction, rather than tugging at his hair.

 

“They were invented by an alien named Davros! We've met him. We've fought them for years! The Doctor has fought them for centuries!” Rose ranted angrily.

 

“He approached one our our brass hats a few months ago. Fellow's a genius,” Churchill insisted.

 

“A Scottish genius, too. Maybe you should listen,” Amy interjected unhelpfully, though proud of her countryman.

 

“What are you on about, Amy? Don't you remember the invasion?” Jamie asked her. She looked at him confusedly as the conversation continued.

 

“Shush! He didn't invent them. They're alien,” the Doctor maintained.

 

“Alien,” Churchill replied with a disbelieving look.

 

“And totally hostile,” the Doctor affirmed.

 

“Precisely. They will win me the war,” Winston told him, assured that only the most powerful weapons could save his country. The Prime Minister decided that he had more work to do and could not stay secluded in his office any longer. He left the room and headed to the map room.

 

The group followed Winston into the hallway as they continued to plead their case. “Why won't you listen to me? Why did you call me in if you won't listen to me?” the Doctor argued.

 

“When I rang you a month ago, I must admit I had my doubts. The Ironsides seemed too good to be true,” Churchill replied.

 

“Yes. Right. So, destroy them. Exterminate them,” the Doctor insisted forcefully.

 

“But imagine what I could do with a hundred. A thousand!” Churchill argued emphatically.

 

“I am imagining! Rose told you, we've fought them! Jamie knows all about them. They're the reason I wasn't with Rose during the pregnancy and his birth! Amy, tell him about the invasion,” the Doctor demanded.

 

“What invasion? Why would I know anything about the Daleks?” Amy wondered confusedly.

 

“Planets in the sky? You don't forget that. Amy, tell me you remember the Daleks,” he pressed worriedly.

 

“No, sorry,” she said simply and shook her head.

 

“That's not possible,” the Doctor said, mystified.

 

“That was the day I came back to this universe. How could you forget the entire Earth being moved and invaded?” Rose asked with a hand on her shoulder as she looked at Amy like she must have lost her mind.

 

Entering the map room, they heard information and orders being passed over the radios to the troops outside. The room was filled with people running back and forth busily and Jamie tried to study everything as his parents focussed their attention on convincing the Prime Minister that his new weapons were a horrific idea.

 

“So, they're up to something,” the Doctor concluded as he wrapped an arm over his wife's shoulders and thought deeply. “But what is it? What are they after?”

 

“Why would they even pretend to help humans?” Rose added and wrapped her arms around his waist.

 

“Well, let's just ask, shall we?” Amy suggested as she approached one of the Daleks that was rolling around the room obediently.

 

“Amy. Amelia!” the Doctor warned, but he was too late to stop her from interacting with it as she knocked on the top of it.

 

“CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?” the Dalek asked her.

 

“Oh. Yes, yes. See, my friends reckon you're dangerous. That you're an alien. Is it true?” Amy asked it.

 

“I AM YOUR SOLDIER,” it replied in its usual terrifying drone.

 

“Yeah. Got that bit. Love a squaddie. What else though?” Amy pressed, hoping for more information than what had already been forthcoming.

 

“PLEASE EXCUSE ME. I HAVE DUTIES TO PERFORM,” it said with impossible courtesy, ignoring her question.

 

“Winston. Winston, please!” the Doctor pleaded for understanding.

 

“We are waging total war, Doctor. Day after day the Luftwaffe pound this great city like an iron fist,” Winston told him eloquently.

 

“Wait 'til the Daleks get started,” the Doctor argued.

 

“Men, women and children slaughtered. Families torn apart. Wren's churches in flame,” Churchill continued.

 

“Yeah. Try the Earth in flames,” the Doctor retorted.

 

“Even _more_ families will be torn apart, Winston, if you allow the Daleks to continue. They tore my family apart already, they nearly destroyed us. It is because of them that the Doctor's whole planet is gone forever,” Rose informed him imploringly.

 

“I weep for my country. I weep for my empire. It is breaking my heart,” the Prime Minister told them.

 

“You're resisting, Winston. The whole world knows you're resisting. You're a beacon of hope,” the Doctor replied, trying to restore his hope while not providing damaging information on future events.

 

“But for how long? Millions of innocent lives will be saved if I use these Ironsides now,” Churchill countered.

 

One of the Daleks approached and interrupted their conversation as it asked, “CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?”

 

The Doctor became suddenly flustered by its abrupt appearance and Rose stepped in front of it aggressively protecting her family. “Shut it, you! And back off,” Rose demanded.

 

“Listen to me, Winston. Just listen. The Daleks have no conscience, no mercy, no pity. They are my oldest and deadliest enemy. You cannot trust them,” the Doctor insisted.

 

“If Hitler invaded hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil,” Churchill commented cheekily.

 

“Yeah, well we've beaten him as well. And he was a piece of cake next to fighting Daleks,” Rose argued, still staring down the eyestalk of the Dalek nearby.

 

“These machines are out salvation,” Churchill told them. A siren sounded then and the tension level in the room relaxed for the moment. “Oh, the All Clear. We are safe, for now,” Winston stated with a sigh and left the room.

 

Amy and Jamie joined the Doctor and Rose then, having allowed them space to argue with the Prime Minister. Jamie's parents pulled him into a group hug as they worried about how to handle the situation.

 

“Doctor, it's the All Clear. Are you guys ok?” Amy asked them.

 

“What does hate look like, Amy?” the Doctor responded, the anger still apparent in his tone.

 

“Hate?” she asked, not understanding the non sequitur. 

 

“It looks like a Dalek. And we're going to prove it,” the Doctor replied as he squeezed his family reassuringly.

 

 


	8. Victory of the Daleks: Part Two

Chapter Eight – Victory of the Daleks: Part Two

 

Trying to behave as if he hadn't just spent the past hour attempting to convince everyone that the “Ironsides” were actually evil aliens, the Doctor glided energetically into Bracewell's laboratory. There was one Dalek in the room, preparing tea of all things, as well as Bracewell himself. The Doctor was followed closely by Rose, Amy and Jamie, who moved just as briskly and confidently.

 

“Alright, Prof. Now, the PM's been filling me in,” he began. He picked up a large spanner off the table as he spun through the room. “Amazing things, these Ironsides of yours. Amazing. You must be very proud of them,” he added as he handed the spanner to his wife and sat in a leather chair feigning relaxation.

 

“Just doing my bit,” he replied over his shoulder as he continued to work on something.

 

“Not bad for a Paisley boy,” Amy added in reference to his Scottish accent.

 

“Yes, I thought I detected a familiar cadence, my dear,” Bracewell commented fondly.

 

“How did you do it? Come up with the idea?” the Doctor pressed for more information.

 

“How does the muse of invention come to anyone?” he asked in reply and turned to face the Doctor.

 

“But you get a lot of these clever notions, do you?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“Well, ideas just seem to teem from my head. Wonderful things, like... Let me show you,” he said as he rushed over to a box of papers where he had recorded some of his ideas. “Some musings on the potential of hypersonic flight. Gravity bubbles that can sustain life outside of the terrestrial atmosphere. Came to me in the bath,” he rambled as he passed the notes on to a curious Jamie who was curiously looking over his shoulder.

 

“Are these your own ideas? This isn't right for this time period,” Jamie commented as he studied the notes and sketches.

 

“Of course, where else would they come from?” Bracewell asked curiously.

 

“Are you sure they didn't give you the ideas?” the Doctor clarified.

 

“Oh no, no, no. These robots are entirely under my control, Doctor. They are,” he assured the group of people who were regarding him suspiciously.

 

The Dalek rolled over to Bracewell at that moment and served him a cup of tea.

 

“Thank you,” he acknowledged. “The perfect servant, and the perfect warrior.”

 

“I don't know what you're up to, Professor, but whatever they've promised, you cannot trust them. Call them what you like, the Daleks are death,” the Doctor told him as he abandoned the act of acceptance.

 

“Yes, Doctor,” Winston called as he entered the room. “Death to our enemies. Death to the forces of darkness, and death to the Third Reich,” he concluded while staring the Doctor in the face.

 

“And death to everyone else on this planet too, by the way. They won't stop there. The last time we faced them, they wouldn't stop with just this universe being destroyed. They wanted to destroy all universes in all of creation,” Rose argued, holding the spanner behind her back with both hands.

 

“WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEA?” the Dalek asked the Doctor.

 

The Doctor angrily smacked the tray that had been perched on its sucker and shouted, “Stop this! What are you doing here? What do you want?”

 

“WE SEEK ONLY TO HELP YOU.”

 

“To do what?” the Doctor demanded.

 

“TO WIN THE WAR,” it replied.

 

“Really?” he asked incredulously. “Which war?”

 

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.”

 

“This war, against the Nazis, or your war? The war against the rest of the Universe? The war against all life forms that are not Dalek?” the Doctor accused angrily.

 

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I AM YOUR SOLDIER.”

 

“Oh, yeah? Ok. Ok, soldier, defend yourself!” the Doctor demanded as he grabbed an even larger spanner than the one he had handed to his wife and began to strike the Dalek repeatedly.

 

“Doctor! What the devil?” Churchill asked in shock at his actions.

 

“YOU DO NOT REQUIRE TEA?” the Dalek asked the Doctor calmly.

 

“I'll give you some bloody tea, you stinking Dalek!” Rose shouted, equally frustrated by the situation and joined her husband in his attack on the creature that had caused them both so much pain.

 

“Stop them! Prime Minister, please,” Bracewell cried as he watched his creations at risk of destruction.

 

“Doctor, please! These machines are precious,” Churchill pleaded with him to stop.

 

Jamie watched with wide, frightened eyes as his parents violently attacked the creature. He knew the destruction they had caused and couldn't understand what cruel game they were playing any more than his father could. But he had never seen his parents like this before. He stayed quietly out of the way, clutching the pages of Bracewell's innovations.

 

“Come on! Fight back! You want to, don't you? You know you do,” the Doctor demanded as he continued his assault. A second Dalek had entered the room, but did not interfere with the actions in any way.

 

“I must protest,” Bracewell called ineffectually.

 

“What are you waiting for? Look, you hate me. You want to kill me. Well, go on. Kill me. Kill me!” the Doctor shouted.

 

“You nearly destroyed my family! You nearly destroyed the entire multiverse! What stupid game are you playing here? Have a go at the one you call Abomination! Come on!” Rose joined her husband in provoking it while striking it fiercely.

 

“PLEASE DESIST FROM STRIKING ME. I AM YOUR SOLDIER.”

 

“You are my enemy! And I am yours. You are everything I despise. The worst thing in all creation. I've defeated you time and time again. We sent you back into the Void. We saved the whole of reality from you. I am the Doctor. And you are the Daleks!” he ranted in fury as he kicked it hard enough to send it rolling away.

 

“CORRECT. REVIEW TESTIMONY,” the Dalek said as it recovered from being knocked away. Addressing the second Dalek, it replayed a recording of the Doctor's last two sentences.

 

“Testimony. What are you talking about, testimony?” the Doctor asked worriedly, as they suddenly seemed to be working together in a more familiar style of behaviour.

 

“TRANSMITTING TESTIMONY NOW,” the second Dalek stated coldly.

 

“Transmit what? Where?” he asked in increasing panic. If they were transmitting, then there had to be a ship, or at least another group of them somewhere.

 

“TESTIMONY ACCEPTED,” the second stated and they turned their attention back towards the people in the room.

 

“Get back, all of you,” the Doctor warned.

 

“Now we've done it, love,” Rose said as she tried to shield Amy. She was glad that Jamie was on the other side of the room, so not attracting their attention as he crouched behind a workbench.

 

“Marines! Marines, get in here,” Churchill ordered, but the two soldiers that ran into the room were immediately killed by the Daleks.

 

“Stop it! Stop it, please. What are you doing? You are my Ironsides,” Bracewell argued with them.

 

“WE ARE THE DALEKS.”

 

“But I created you,” he said assuredly.

 

“NO. WE CREATED YOU,” the first Dalek announced as it shot off Bracewell's hand to reveal sparking wires.

 

“VICTORY. VICTORY. VICTORY,” the Daleks chanted together before teleporting away.

 

“Oh god,” Rose gasped and fell to her knees.

 

“What just happened, Doctor?” Amy asked, in shock.

 

“I wanted to know what they wanted. What their plan was. I was their plan,” the Doctor reasoned as he helped Rose back up to her feet and hugged her tightly. “Alright. This is what's going to happen now. Amy and Jamie, you are to stay here, where it's safe.”

 

“Safe? In the middle of the London Blitz?” Amy asked incredulously.

 

“Safer than a Dalek ship,” Jamie said quietly.

 

“Safe as it gets in our life and you never know, you might be able to help from here,” Rose told them.

 

“Always good to have backup somewhere,” the Doctor nodded and he raced off towards the TARDIS, pulling Rose roughly behind him. She would have to get used to how quickly this version of her husband would start moving or risk dislocating her shoulder.

 

“What's he expect us to do now?” Amy asked curiously.

 

“K.B.O. Of course,” Churchill replied.

 

“What?” 

 

“Keep buggering on,” he clarified as he puffed his cigar and left the room. Amy decided to follow him and stay on top of what was happening.

 

“Can I help you with some repairs, Professor?” Jamie asked Bracewell tentatively.

 

“I suppose,” he replied sadly. He seemed to be trying to take in the information that he was in fact an android created by the Daleks and not the man he thought he was at all.

 

Searching some of the boxes for parts to assist him, Jamie found enough advanced technology to wire the weapon systems for several Daleks. Finding what he was originally looking for, he turned back to Bracewell and asked, “Where did you get all these parts? These aren't from your time period.”

 

“Well, I thought that I manufactured them myself, but in light of recent revelations, perhaps not,” he sighed as he allowed Jamie to repair his hand using a sonic screwdriver and found parts.

 

Jamie's mind considered possibilities with regard to being the backup his parents had mentioned, but knew that if they did use any of those weapons to stop the Daleks, they couldn't leave them with the army afterward.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

In Churchill's office, a secretary came to report, “Prime Minister?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Signal from RDF, sir. Unidentified object. Hanging in the sky, Captain Childers says. We can't get a proper fix, though. It's too far up,” the woman informed him.

 

“What do you think, Miss Pond? The Doctor and Rose are in trouble and now we know where they are,” Winston stated confidently.

 

“Yeah. Because they'll be on that ship, won't they? Right in the middle of everything,” Amy said with a smile.

 

“Exactly,” he agreed through a puff of cigar smoke. They moved then to head to the map room where they might keep up with events.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

On the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose scanned the space surrounding Earth for the Dalek ship that they were sure would be there.

 

“Come on... Bingo!” the Doctor declared as the monitor displayed it's location moving out from behind the moon to an orbit above England. They set themselves to land inside the ship and departed hand-in-hand to face their greatest enemies, yet again.

 

“How about that cuppa now, then?” the Doctor called to the three Daleks surrounding some sort of chamber entrance.

 

“IT IS THE DOCTOR,” one of them announced.

 

“EXTERMINATE,” said another.

 

“Wait, wait, wait!” the Doctor called as he reached into a pocket inside his jacket to pull out a jammy dodger. “I wouldn't if I were you. TARDIS self-destruct, and you know what that means. My ship goes, you all go with it,” the Doctor announced as he presented the biscuit threateningly.

 

Rose held back the giggles that wanted to surface at the ridiculousness of her husband holding off the Daleks with a biscuit.

 

“YOU WOULD NOT USE SUCH A DEVICE,” one of the Daleks accused.

 

“You don't think so?” Rose asked with raised eyebrows.

 

“Try me,” the Doctor added.

 

One of the Daleks rolled toward them and the Doctor quickly warned, “Ah, ah, ah, ah. No scans. No nothing. One move and I'll destroy us all, you got that? TARDIS bang bang, Daleks boom!”

 

The advancing Dalek returned to the others as the Doctor examined his surroundings and continued, “Good boy. This ships pretty beaten up. Running on empty, I'd say, like you. How did you get here, then?”

 

“WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DESTROYED, ONE SHIP SURVIVED, FALLING THROUGH TIME,” a Dalek explained.

 

“Ooh, not from Davros then... this lot's from the Game Station,” the Doctor deduced.

 

“WE PICKED UP A TRACE. ONE OF THE PROGENITOR DEVICES.”

 

“What's a Progenitor? What does it do?” Rose asked, concerned that her first experience as Bad Wolf had apparently sent this group here. Could she have inadvertently scattered Daleks across the universe instead of destroying them all as she had thought.

 

“IT IS OUR PAST, AND OUR FUTURE.”

 

“Oh? That's deep. That's deep for a Dalek. What does it mean, though?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“IT CONTAINS PURE DALEK DNA. THOUSANDS WERE CREATED. ALL WERE LOST, SAVE ONE.”

 

“Ok, but there's still one thing I don't get, though. If you've got the Progenitor, why build Bracewell?” the Doctor asked them.

 

“IT WAS NECESSARY.”

 

“But why? ... I get it. Oh, I get it. Oh ho! This is rich. The Progenitor wouldn't recognize you, would it? It saw you as impure because all of the Daleks from the Game Station came from humans. Your DNA is unrecognizable as Dalek,” the Doctor said in realization.

 

“A SOLUTION WAS DEVISED.”

 

“So that's why they wanted your testimony? To prove to this thing that they were really Daleks?” Rose asked as she worked out the cause.

 

“You set a trap. You knew that the Progenitor would recognize me, the Daleks' greatest enemy. It would accept my word. My recognition of you,” the Doctor explained.

 

The Doctor paced the room confidently as he worked out their plan, but Rose watched as one of the Daleks moved to a control panel. “Hey! No, what are you doing?” she shouted.

 

“WITHDRAW NOW, DOCTOR, OR THE CITY DIES IN FLAMES.”

 

“Who are you kidding? This ship is a wreck. You don't have the power to destroy London,” the Doctor argued, knowing that the city was relatively safe from the Dalek ship from this far away.

 

“WATCH AS THE HUMANS DESTROY THEMSELVES.”

 

“ _Jamie, what's happening down there? The Daleks are threatening the city,”_ the Doctor thought to his son back on Earth.

 

 


	9. Victory of the Daleks: Part Three

Chapter Nine – Victory of the Daleks: Part Three

 

As soon as Jamie heard his father's telepathic call, he ran to the map room to find out what was happening. He saw Amy standing with the Prime Minister and hurried to join them.

 

“The generators won't switch off. The lights are on all across London, Prime Minister,” an officer announced as he repeatedly tried the master switch.

 

“It has to be them. It has to be the Daleks,” Amy said confidently.

 

“It is. Dad says the Daleks are threatening the city,” Jamie told them as he tapped his head to indicate how he got the message.

 

“The Germans can see every inch of the city. We're sitting ducks. Get those lights out before the Germans get here!” Churchill ordered and the men and women around them frantically chattered over the radios. “Thousands will die if we don't get those lights out now,” Winston despaired.

 

A woman removed the headset she was wearing to address the Prime Minister with news, “German bombers sighted over the Channel, sir. ETA ten minutes, sir.”

 

“Here they come. Get a message to Mister Attlee. War Cabinet meeting at oh three hundred hours. If we're all still here,” Churchill ordered.

 

“ _They've somehow made it so that they can't turn the lights off anywhere in the city. There's a group of bombers that will be here in ten minutes. I've got a couple of ideas, but ten minutes is pushing it,”_ Jamie thought to his parents.

 

“ _We always do better with a time limit. There's go to be a dish on the bottom of this ship that's sending the signal. That's what needs to be destroyed,”_ the Doctor replied.

 

“We can't just sit here,” Amy declared. “We've got to take the fight to the Daleks.”

 

“How? None of our weapons are a match for theirs,” Churchill argued.

 

“You've got me, you've got Bracewell and we've got all the parts leftover in his lab. But we've got to hurry. Come on!” Jamie told them as he ran back to Bracewell's lab.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“Turn those lights off now. Turn London off or I swear I will use the TARDIS self destruct,” the Doctor threatened, hoping they would fall for his bluff.

 

“STALEMATE, DOCTOR. LEAVE US AND RETURN TO EARTH,” one of the Daleks demanded.

 

“As if we're going to believe that you'd just leave here without destroying everything first?” Rose replied, furious that the Daleks would even try to suggest a peaceful ending, especially one that would only make things worse in the long run because it would give them time to rebuild before they faced them again.

 

“EXTINCTION IS NOT AN OPTION. WE SHALL RETURN TO OUR OWN TIME AND BEGIN AGAIN.”

 

“No, no, no. I won't let you get away this time. I won't!” the Doctor told them emphatically.

 

There was a sudden sound of machinery buzzing and whirring that seemed to send the Daleks back to work on the surrounding systems.

 

“WE HAVE SUCCEEDED. DNA RECONSTRUCTION IS COMPLETE. OBSERVE, A NEW DALEK PARADIGM,” one of them announced as the door to the chamber opened and five huge Daleks rolled out into the room. They were all different colours, shiny, tall, and their eye piece looked more biological than the usual blue light.

 

“Are you starting a basketball team?” Rose asked cheekily in the hopes of lightening the mood even as her heart beat increased in fear.

 

“THE PROGENITOR HAS FULFILLED OUR NEW DESTINY. BEHOLD, THE RESTORATION OF THE DALEKS. THE RESURRECTION OF THE MASTER RACE.”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Bursting into the room and running straight for the crates of parts, Jamie called out, “Professor Bracewell, we've got work to do!”

 

Bracewell sat miserably at another workbench with a pistol in his hand.

 

“Bracewell, put the gun down,” Churchill ordered and Jamie looked over at him in surprise. Why would he have a gun?

 

“My life is a lie, and I choose to end it,” the professor replied, his voice choked with anguish.

 

“In your own time, Paisley boy, because right now, we need your help,” Amy told him with her usual fierce demeanour.

 

“But those creatures, my Ironsides, they made me? I can remember things. So many things. The last war, the squalor, and the mud, and the awful, awful misery of it all. What am I? What am I?” he confusedly despaired.

 

“What you are, sir, is either on our side or theirs. Now, I don't give a damn if you're a machine, Bracewell. Are you a man?” Churchill challenged him.

 

“Come on, Professor. I can do a lot, but I'll need your help if we're going to stop the Daleks in time. They've got London lit up like a Christmas tree and the Germans are less than ten minutes away. We can use your gravity bubble specs and the leftover energy weapon parts to adapt some planes and attack the Dalek ship, but the trip itself will take a few minutes, so we've got to get these parts attached to the planes, NOW!” Jamie told him urgently.

 

“You're right, Jamie. Let's get to work!” Bracewell said with sudden excitement as he put the gun down and ran to help gather the necessary parts and papers.

 

Churchill and Amy smiled at the pair as Winston said proudly, “It's time to think big.”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

On board the Daleks' ship, the three older Daleks chanted as they observed the new ones, “ALL HAIL THE NEW DALEKS. ALL HAIL THE NEW DALEKS.”

 

The Doctor and Rose watched the interactions warily as the Doctor took his wife's hand. Their bracelets clinked together and their fear swirled together as they faced this threat that was both new and old.

 

“YES. YOU ARE INFERIOR,” the large, white Dalek declared ominously.

 

“YES,” one of the smaller, khaki ones responded.

 

“THEN PREPARE,” the white one announced and the large, blue Dalek turned to face them.

 

“WE ARE READY,” the three smaller ones responded.

 

“CLEANSE THE UNCLEAN. TOTAL OBLITERATION. DISINTEGRATE!” the white Dalek ordered with increasing vehemence.

 

At that order, the blue Dalek fired upon two of the older Daleks and they vaporized into nothing, as the large, red Dalek did the same to the last of them.

 

“Blimey. What do you do to the ones who mess up?” the Doctor asked as he stared at them and squeezed Rose's hand.

 

The white Dalek rolled towards them ominously and stated, “YOU ARE THE DOCTOR AND THE ABOMINATION. YOU MUST BE EXTERMINATED.”

 

The Doctor held up his biscuit once more and declared, “Don't mess with me, sweetheart.”

 

“You will stop this now,” Rose ordered as her eyes glowed with a threatening, golden light.

 

“ _How are you doing that, love? Can you control the power of the Bad Wolf? I didn't know you could do that,”_ the Doctor thought frantically to his wife, hoping that she would be alright and that Jamie's plan (whatever it was) would help soon.

 

“ _I don't know. I feel so angry and afraid, and it's like a pressure building in my mind. I just don't know,”_ she replied silently as she continued to glare at the Daleks in front of them.

 

Suddenly, Rose and the Doctor could hear Jamie contacting them,  _“Help is on the way in the form of three space capable Spitfires. They are equipped with Dalek lasers. You said they need to aim for a dish on the ship?”_

 

“ _Oh, thank god,”_ Rose thought with relief.

 

“ _Yes, perfect. There should be a dish on the underside of the ship, aimed toward London, that is sending the signal to keep the lights on,”_ the Doctor replied for Jamie to pass along the information to the fighter pilots.

 

“WE ARE THE PARADIGM OF THE NEW DALEK RACE. SCIENTIST, STRATEGIST, DRONE, ETERNAL, AND THE SUPREME,” the white Dalek announced.

 

“And the supreme would be you, I'm guessing. Well, you know, nice paint job,” the Doctor snarked at them. “I'd be feeling pretty swish if I looked like you. Pretty supreme.”

 

“All you need are some brand stickers on your fancy, new sports cars and you're ready to race,” Rose added.

 

“Question is, what do we do now? Either you turn off your clever machine or I'll blow you and your new paradigm into eternity,” the Doctor threatened them.

 

“WITH YOU AND YOUR FEMALE AS WELL.”

 

“Occupational hazard,” the Doctor countered confidently.

 

“SCAN REVEALS NOTHING. TARDIS SELF DESTRUCT DEVICE NON-EXISTENT,” the blue Dalek announced and the Doctor proceeded to eat the biscuit with a shrug.

 

“Alright, it's a Jammy Dodger, but I was promised tea!” the Doctor admitted, mumbling through biscuit crumbs.

 

“ALERT. UNIDENTIFIED PROJECTILE APPROACHING. CORRECTION, MULTIPLE PROJECTILES,” the blue Dalek declared as an alarm sounded on the ship.

 

“WHAT HAVE THE HUMANS DONE?” the white Dalek asked.

 

The Doctor crossed his arms and smirked, “I think that will become apparent very soon.”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“Target is now in sight, sir. We're setting our sights on the dish. Over,” the pilot sounded from the radio in the map room.

 

“Send in all you've got, Group Captain! And good luck to you,” Churchill ordered encouragingly.

 

They could hear the pilots calling to each other over the radios, but stayed silent so as not to distract them from their vital task. They listened as two of the adapted planes were destroyed and Jamie decided that they needed to do more.

 

“ _The planes are being shot down, dad. Is there any way you can take down the shields over the dish?”_ Jamie asked his father.

 

“ _I should be able to, but it won't be for long. Wait for my order before sending them in,”_ the Doctor replied.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

As the Daleks tried to fire on them, the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and tugged her along after him again, back to the TARDIS. He dematerialized from the Dalek ship and hacked into their systems to put down their shields for a few moments as he sent Jamie the go ahead to send the last fighter plane in. The dish was destroyed and the plane turned for a second run at the ship, in the hopes of destroying it completely before the shields could be restored.

 

“Danny Boy to the Doctor. Come in please,” came a voice transmission to the TARDIS.

 

“The Doctor to Danny Boy. Nice hit! Now, destroy that ship,” the Doctor replied.

 

“DOCTOR, CALL OFF YOUR ATTACK,” the supreme Dalek sent in a visual transmission.

 

“Ah ha. What? And let you scuttle off back to the future? No fear. This is the end for you. The final end,” the Doctor responded confidently.

 

“CALL OFF THE ATTACK OR WE WILL DESTROY THE EARTH,” came the reply.

 

“I'm not stupid, mate. You've just played your last card,” he scoffed.

 

“BRACEWELL IS A BOMB,” the answer came ominously. Rose and the Doctor's eyes met in that moment as a chill passed over them.

 

“You're bluffing. Deception's second nature to you. There isn't a sincere bone in your body. There isn't a _bone_ in your body,” the Doctor argued.

 

“ _Jamie, the Daleks are saying that Bracewell has a bomb inside him, is there any way you can check for that? Your father is hoping they're bluffing and I have a feeling they'll set it off whether we let them go or not,”_ Rose thought to her son while her husband argued with the aliens.

 

“HIS POWER IS DERIVED FROM AN OBLIVION CONTINUUM. CALL OFF YOUR ATTACK, OR WE WILL DETONATE THE ANDROID,” the supreme Dalek replied.

 

“No. This is my best chance ever. The last of the Daleks. I can rid the Universe of you, once and for all,” the Doctor declared, knowing full well that he was always destroying the 'last' of them, but like cockroaches, they just kept returning.

 

“THEN DO IT. BUT WE WILL SHATTER THE PLANET BELOW. THE EARTH WILL DIE SCREAMING.”

 

“Yeah, and if I let you go, you'll be stronger than ever. A new race of Daleks,” the Doctor acknowledged.

 

“ _There is a bomb inside of him, but I don't know what to do with it. I need dad's help to diffuse it,”_ Jamie replied worriedly.

 

“THEN CHOOSE, DOCTOR. DESTROY THE DALEKS OR SAVE THE EARTH. BEGIN COUNTDOWN OF OBLIVION CONTINUUM. CHOOSE, DOCTOR. CHOOSE. CHOOSE.”

 

The Doctor reluctantly ordered the last fighter plane back to Earth and moved the TARDIS back down to the filing room where they had been earlier. As expected, however, the Daleks set the bomb to detonate despite their retreat.

 

They found Bracewell lying on the floor of his laboratory with his shirt open to reveal metal across his entire torso and a large circular light in the centre of his chest. The circular light was divided into five segments which were changing in colour, one by one, from white to yellow to red.

 

“Ok so, sorry Professor, but you are a bomb. An inconceivably massive Dalek bomb. There's an Oblivion Continuum inside you. A captured wormhole that provides perpetual power. Detonate that, and the Earth will bleed through into another dimension. Now, let's see what we can do,” the Doctor explained as he took over from Jamie and scanned Bracewell with his own sonic.

 

The Doctor was tapping his forehead with his fingers in frustration as he thought about what to do. This wasn't a technology that he was familiar with.

 

“What can we do, dad?” Jamie asked, not having had any luck with finding controls he could access for the thing.

 

“I don't know, I don't know. I've never seen one up close before,” the Doctor answered, his worry and frustration apparent to everyone.

 

“So what, they've wired him up to detonate?” Amy asked in panic.

 

“Oh no, not wired him up. He is a bomb. Walking, talking, POW, exploding, the moment that flashes red,” he explained and searched frantically for some kind of controls.

 

“It's incredible. He talked to us about his memories. The Great War,” Churchill commented as he looked curiously at the android on the floor.

 

“Someone else's stolen thoughts, implanted in a positronic brain. Tell me about it! Bracewell! Tell me about your life,” the Doctor requested, deciding that maybe they could override the system through interacting with him somehow. He nervously tossed his screwdriver back and forth in his hands, the motion somehow aiding in his thought processes.

 

“Doctor, I really don't think this is the time,” Bracewell argued.

 

“Tell me, and prove you're human. Tell me everything,” he encouraged as Rose folded Jamie in her arms, hoping that this plan would work.

 

“My family ran the Post Office. It's a little place just near the abbey, just by the ash trees. There used to be eight trees but there was a storm,” the professor told him nervously, shaking with fear.

 

“And your parents? Come on, tell me,” the Doctor prompted as he watched the segments continue to turn to yellow and then red.

 

“Good people. Kind people. They died. Scarlet fever,” he replied, being slightly distracted from the ominous situation.

 

“What was that like? How did it feel? How did it make you feel, Edwin? Tell me. Tell me now,” he pressed further.

 

“It hurt. It hurt, Doctor, it hurt so badly. It was like a wound. I thought it was worse than a wound. Like I'd been emptied out. There was nothing left,” Bracewell answered as his feelings turned from fear to painful sobs.

 

“Good. Remember it now, Edwin. The ash trees by the Post Office, and your mum and dad, and losing them, and the men in the trenches you saw die. Remember it. Feel it. You feel it because you're human. You're not like them. You're not like the Daleks,” the Doctor told him emphatically. He felt that it wasn't working, but he didn't have another plan and there wasn't time for another plan, this _had_ to work.

 

“It hurts, Doctor. It hurts so much,” he sobbed and trembled violently.

 

“Good. Good, good, brilliant. Embrace it. That means you're alive. They cannot explode that bomb because you're a human being. You are flesh and blood. They cannot explode that bomb. Believe it. You are Professor Edwin Bracewell, and you, my friend, are a human being!” the Doctor insisted.

 

The lights continued to change and now four of the five were red as the last one turned yellow.

 

“It's not working. I can't stop it,” the Doctor stated finally as he watched Amy approach Bracewell from the other side. He looked at her, hoping maybe she had another idea. Humans could be brilliant after all.

 

Amy met his eyes and he gave her a slight nod of encouragement to try whatever idea she might have. With a small smile, she calmly whispered to Bracewell, “Hey, Paisley. Ever fancied someone you know you shouldn't?”

 

“What?” he asked confusedly.

 

“It hurts, doesn't it? But kind of a good hurt,” Amy suggested with a smirk.

 

“I really shouldn't talk about her,” Edwin said, blushing.

 

“Oh. There's a _her,_ ” Amy encouraged and they all watched as the last segment turned back from yellow to white.

 

“What was her name?” the Doctor asked as he saw that calm, positive thoughts seemed to be working rather than the pain that he had been encouraging before.

 

“Dorabella,” Bracewell told them with a dreamy smile.

 

“Dorabella? It's a lovely name. It's a beautiful name,” the Doctor replied.

 

Rose and Jamie smiled at each other then, as they watched another segment fading from red to yellow.

 

“What was she like, Edwin?” Amy asked him, proud that her idea was working so well.

 

“Oh, such a smile. And her eyes. Her eyes were so blue. Almost violet, like the last touch of sunset on the edge of the world. Dorabella,” he sighed happily as he focussed on the memories that had been implanted in his mind. As if a switch had been flipped, all of the lights quickly turned back to white and the danger was past.

 

“Welcome to the human race,” the Doctor told Bracewell. “You're brilliant, professor. And you, Amy...” he cut himself off and grabbed Amy's face in both hands to kiss her forehead. 

 

“Now! Got to stop them. Stop the Daleks,” the Doctor exclaimed as he jumped to his feet and started to hurry back to the TARDIS.

 

“Wait, Doctor! Wait, wait. It's too late,” Bracewell called to him from the floor as he struggled to sit up. “Gone. They've gone.”

 

“No. No! They can't. They can't have got away from me again!” he cried in anguish. Rose and Jamie reached for him then and pulled the Doctor into a comforting hug.

 

“No, I can feel it. My mind is clear. The Daleks have gone,” Edwin explained how he knew that the ship had left.

 

“Doctor, it's ok. You did it. You stopped the bomb. Doctor?” Amy said, trying to console him.

 

“I had a choice. And they knew I'd choose the Earth. The Daleks have won. They beat me. They've won,” he despaired with his head resting on his wife's shoulder.

 

“Doctor, it's ok, yeah. They got away from us, and we will face them again, but Amy found a way to stop the bomb. For right now, the Earth is safe. I'm just sorry that ship ever escaped from the Game Station. That's my fault,” Rose told him.

 

“No, Rose. Please, don't you start blaming yourself, now,” the Doctor told her chastisingly.

 

“What, you think you've got a monopoly on self-deprecation?” she asked teasingly.

 

“Darn right I do,” he said with a smile.

 

“There we go. You saved the Earth. Not too shabby, is it?” Amy asked, glad that he was coming back from his downward spiral.

 

“No, it's not too shabby,” the Doctor acknowledged.

 

“It's a brilliant achievement, my dear friend. Here, have a cigar,” Winston offered.

 

Rose cringed at it and the Doctor politely declined.

 

As morning dawned, the Doctor and Jamie worked to remove the advanced technology from the remaining Spitfire and the spare parts in Bracewell's laboratory. Rose talked with Bracewell as they worked and encouraged him to embrace life as a human. So long as he lead a normal life and didn't invent anything before its time, he would be just fine.

 

The family then joined Amy and Churchill in the map room.

 

“Just tying up loose ends. We've taken out all the alien tech Bracewell and Jamie put in,” the Doctor informed the Prime Minister.

 

“Won't you reconsider, Doctor? Those Spitfires would win me the war in twenty hours,” Churchill pleaded.

 

“Exactly,” the Doctor replied.

 

“But why not? Why can't we put an end to all this misery?” Winston asked, just wanting the suffering in his country to stop.

 

“Oh, it doesn't work like that, Winston, and it's going to be tough. There are terrible days to come. The darkest days. But you can do it. You know you can,” the Doctor encouraged.

 

“Stay with us, and help us win through. The world needs you,” the Prime Minister said hopefully.

 

“The world doesn't need me. Not here at least,” he told him.

 

“No?” Churchill asked with raised brows.

 

“The world's got Winston Spencer Churchill,” he told him admiringly.

 

With a large, understanding smile, the Prime Minister said, “It's been a pleasure, Doctor, as always. Rose, Jamie, lovely to meet you as well. Goodbye.” He proceeded to hug each of them in turn.

 

“Goodbye, Miss Pond,” he said finally as he turned to face Amy.

 

“It's... it's been amazing, meeting you,” she told him.

 

“I'm sure it has,” he acknowledged and hugged her as well before turning to walk away.

 

Amy called after him, “Oi! Churchill! TARDIS key. The one you just took from the Doctor.” She held out her hand expectantly and he reluctantly turned to place the key in her hand.

 

The Doctor frantically searched his pockets, wondering how he could be so easy to pick pocket in this incarnation. He used to be spectacular at slight of hand himself.

 

“Oh, she's good, Doctor. As sharp as a pin. Almost as sharp as me,” Winston told him.

 

The Doctor held out his hand to get the key from Amy, as she had pocketed it herself. She rolled her eyes and handed it back. Then, they all walked back to the TARDIS.

 

“So, you have enemies then?” Amy asked.

 

“Everyone's got enemies,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Yeah, but mine's the woman outside Budgens with the mental Jack Russell. You've got, like, arch-enemies,” Amy said with concern.

 

“Yeah, Amy. What we do, it isn't always safe. But we make the decisions that no one else dares to. We make a stand, because we're the only ones who can,” Rose told her.

 

“It's dangerous. Is that a problem?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“I'm still here, aren't I? You're worried about the Daleks,” she replied.

 

“I'm always worried about the Daleks,” he answered honestly.

 

“It'll take time though, won't it? I mean, there's still not many of them. They'll need a while to build themselves up,” Amy reassured him.

 

“Oh, Amy. With time travel, we could go back to the day after we left and find that they've had enough time to build hundreds of ships,” Rose told her.

 

“It's not that, though. There's something else. Something we've forgotten. Or rather _you_ have,” the Doctor said and Rose remembered that Amy had forgotten about the planets in the sky.

 

“Me?” Amy asked.

 

“You didn't know them, Amy. You'd never seen them before. And you should have done. You should,” he told her as they entered the time ship.

 

“Dad?” Jamie called to him as he ran up the stairs toward the console.

 

“Yes, Jamie?” he acknowledged as he started flicking the controls to send them into the Vortex with a flourish.

 

“Before you regenerated, you said that there was something I needed to do. Something about the Vortex. Did you forget? Or am I not ready for that?” Jamie asked him.

 

The Doctor sighed, knowing that he couldn't put it off any longer. “You're ready... the TARDIS is ready too. Let's you and I go have a chat in the Library first though. Ladies, you get some rest. This might take a little while,” he said as he threw the final lever to dematerialize and put an arm around his son's shoulders.

 


	10. Gazing into Eternity

Chapter Ten – Gazing into Eternity

 

Jamie and the Doctor sat comfortably in the library. The Doctor was in his usual brown, leather chair. His hands were folded together casually and his legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He'd had that chair for a long time now, several regenerations at least. Jamie sat in the chair across from it, where his mother usually sat when they were in here together. It was a soft, burgundy fabric that his mother said was far cozier than leather.

 

"On Gallifrey, when we were eight years old, all children were taken to the Untempered Schism. It was a gap in the fabric of reality, where we could see into the Time Vortex. The TARDIS has created, for you, a room where we can see into the Vortex while we fly through it. Just opening the doors wouldn't be safe while we are in the Vortex, but my Old Girl knows exactly what you need and how to do it safely," the Doctor told his son in soft, deliberate tones.

 

"When you look into the Vortex, it will hurt. But it will open up your time senses even more than they already are. It will also unlock your ability to regenerate. It'll probably be a little harder to be around your Uncle Jack until you get used to it. What your mother did to him makes him grate against our senses, but you've grown up with him around, so it won't be as bad for you as it was for me," he explained further.

 

"Do I have to do it?" Jamie asked, frightened by his father saying it would hurt. He knew his father could withstand a lot of pain easily and if this was enough to warrant a warning, it would be pretty bad.

 

"Right now, when you concentrate, you can see the important timelines around you. Once your senses are opened, the big, important ones will stand out to you all the time. You'll only need to concentrate to see the smaller, more flexible ones. The other thing to keep in mind is that you are currently aging similarly to humans. My first incarnation died of old age when I was just over four hundred years old, but with each successive regeneration, my aging gets slower and slower. I could easily go close to a thousand years before regenerating of old age now," the Doctor told him, hoping he would understand the importance of continuing this legacy. There would never be enough Time Lords from this one little family to repopulate the whole species, but the Doctor wanted someone to be the guardian over the universe when he couldn't anymore.

 

"Ok. Anything else I need to know?" Jamie asked, accepting that his father felt this was important.

 

"Only that what you see could be inspiring or terrifying. Either one is ok and whatever you need afterward, your mother and I are here to help," he replied, standing and offering Jamie his hand.

 

Jamie took his father's hand and allowed himself to be led to a new room. The double doors were tall and ornate. There was Gallifreyan writing all over the surface. Not one particular phrase, just random words about time, eternity, legacy, and responsibility. Jamie gulped down the lump in his throat as his father opened the doors.

 

"I'll have to wait for you here, Jamie. This is something you need to do yourself, but I'll be right here," the Doctor said and nudged Jamie into the room.

 

He walked nervously toward the portal that was glowing and seemed to call out to him somehow. Taking a deep, centring breath, Jamie squared his shoulders and moved to stand before the portal.

 

There was a swirling light in the clouds of gas that was mesmerizing. He felt a shift in his mind that was both painful and terrifying, but he could not look away. His own timeline, that had always been hidden from him, was suddenly revealed with stunning clarity. Centuries stretched before him. Centuries of struggles and pain and terrifying fear, but also of love and success and unbridled joy. It was too much. As the shift in his senses finally released its hold on him, Jamie turned and ran.

 

He sprinted down the hallway, past his father, who understood this reaction all too well. Jamie ran blindly through halls he had never seen before. The TARDIS was ancient and enormous. The Doctor himself had probably never seen all the rooms and corridors, and some he just hadn't seen for centuries.

 

When Jamie felt he couldn't run anymore, he leaned against the wall, panting harshly. His head was still aching and he shut his eyes tightly as he focused on slowing his breathing and his racing hearts. He had no idea how far he had run or where he was, but the TARDIS would help him find his way back when he was ready. For now, he decided to explore.

 

The first door he came across seemed to be an art gallery, containing many famous pieces that he was sure had been historically recorded as lost or destroyed forever. His father must have rescued them. There was also a large statue of his mother, dressed as the goddess Fortuna. He had heard some of the story from his parents and knew that his father had carved it. It was worn now, as they had to leave it in Ancient Rome until it ended up in the collection of the museum where they had first found it. His father probably stole it from the museum collection shortly after that, feeling that it belonged to him and there wouldn't be a risk of a paradox anymore after the exhibit where Uncle Mickey had discovered it.

 

The next room Jamie entered was an overgrown garden. There was a garden room in the main areas that they frequented regularly, but considering the size of the TARDIS, there could easily be whole jungles hidden in her depths. He didn't bother to explore the garden, but continued down the hall.

 

He passed a garage, containing a blue scooter, an old yellow car and a big, black motorcycle. There were a few storage rooms containing various electronics parts and old clothes.

 

Finally, he came to an ornately carved door. The design was floral and Jamie thought it might be another garden, but opened the door to check. Inside, there were fields filled with flowers. There was a simulated sky that depicted a sunny day, with white, fluffy clouds in a bright blue sky. What drew him into the room however was that everywhere he looked there were hundreds of brightly coloured butterflies.

 

The first real smile since he had looked into the Vortex spread across his face and with a happy shout, Jamie spun around, falling into the soft grass. He laid there, gazing into the sky for hours. Content to just watch the simulated clouds float by overhead as his mind cleared and the pain eased. He could no longer remember the details he had seen in his timeline, but he knew that was the way it should be. The timelines of yourself and the people close to you were always hidden. He knew that his role was important in the universe, just as his father's and mother's were. 

 

His time senses told him that it had been three hours since he had run from the portal that opened into the Vortex when he noticed his father plopping onto the grass next to him. Neither of them said anything for a long time. They both just laid in the grass and wild flowers, watching the butterflies and clouds floating by.

 

"Feeling better?" The Doctor asked softly.

 

"Yeah. I think I just need some time to sort it all out," Jamie replied with a sigh.

 

"Yeah," his dad acknowledged. After a few minutes had passed, he spoke again, "Your mother made some supper. I thought you might want to come have something to eat and then maybe get a few hours of sleep to let your mind settle a bit."

 

"That sounds like a good idea. Can we move this room closer to mine? I'd like to come back here without getting lost on the way," Jamie requested as he took another deep breath of the fragrant flowery field.

 

"Absolutely. Your mother would like it I think. I haven't been in here since before the War," the Doctor told him and they both reluctantly got up from the ground.

 

After brushing the grass off of each other, the two Time Lords made their way back to the kitchen to join Rose and Amy for supper.

 


	11. Time of Angels: Part One

Chapter Eleven – The Time of Angels: Part One

 

 

They were strolling through a museum, again. Rose wondered just how often she would have to indulge her husband in this behaviour. His new incarnation seemed to take particular delight in it, even more than his last two.

 

Dashing excitedly through the displays, the Doctor shouted, “Wrong! Wrong! Bit right, mostly wrong.... I love museums.”

 

“Yeah, great. Can we go to a planet now? Big space ship... Churchill's bunker... You promised me a planet next,” Amy complained as she followed along with Rose and Jamie, who didn't even bother trying to keep up with him.

 

“He does this every once in a while, it won't take long,” Rose told her in consolation.

 

“Amy, this isn't any old asteroid. It's the Delerium Archive, the final resting place of the Headless Monks. The biggest museum ever,” the Doctor informed her.

 

“You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?” Amy asked.

 

“That will become apparent,” Jamie said, rolling his eyes.

 

“Wrong!” the Doctor shouted suddenly. “Very wrong. Ooh, one of mine. Also one of mine, remember this one, Rose?!”

 

“Yes, dear!” she called after him, not really looking at what object he was referring to.

 

“Oh, I see. It's how he keeps score,” Amy realized.

 

“Now you're getting it,” Rose laughed as she bumped shoulders with her. “Looks like he's found something interesting. Let's go see what it is,” Rose added when she saw him stop and stare at a box inside a glass case.

 

“Oh great, an old box,” Amy snarked.

 

“It's from one of the old starliners. A Home Box,” the Doctor told them.

 

“What's a Home Box?” Amy inquired, hoping the answer would be more interesting than most of her museum trips.

 

“It's kind of like the black box on a plane. It records all the flight data on the ship and then, if anything happens, the box flies itself home,” Jamie explained and the Doctor ruffled his hair and gave him a proud smile.

 

“So?” Amy asked.

 

“It's the writing that's caught your attention, isn't it?” Rose wondered.

 

“Yeah... the graffiti is Old High Gallifreyan. The lost language of the Time Lords,” the Doctor informed them.

 

“But that doesn't look like the Gallifreyan that you write now, Doctor,” Rose said curiously.

 

“No, they stopped using this a very long time ago. Circular Gallifreyan is better for explaining time travel than this is. But, there were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods,” he explained reverently.

 

“I can't read it, dad. What does it say?” Jamie asked.

 

The Doctor sighed as he rolled his eyes and admitted with some embarrassment, “Hello, Sweetie. Bring James and Rose.”

 

The Doctor proceeded to... liberate the box from the case and they all ran back to the TARDIS as the security guards chased after them. Upon shutting the doors, Rose set the TARDIS to dematerialize from the museum while the Doctor plugged the Home Box into the console. They all gathered around the monitor to watch the security videos.

 

On the monitor, they saw a woman leaving the room where she had carved the message into the Home Box and she winked at the camera over her jewelled sunglasses before pushing them back in place. The camera switched and showed her standing in front of an airlock door as they heard someone speaking to her.

 

“The party's over, Doctor Song. Yet still you're on board,” the man off camera said. Rose gasped slightly at the mention of the name Doctor Song. She felt the Doctor's acknowledgement that this was indeed the River Song that he had told her about.

 

“Sorry, Alistair. I needed to see what was in your vault. Do you all know what's down there? Any of you? Because I'll tell you something. This ship won't reach its destination,” River replied, then looked at her watch.

 

“Wait 'til she runs. Don't make it look like an execution,” the man's voice ordered.

 

Fixing her hair, River began to calmly list space-time coordinates, “Triple seven five, slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve, slash acorn. Oh, and I could do with an air corridor.”

 

The Doctor, Rose, and Jamie recognized what her strange series of words were instantly and started inputting the commands to pick her up. 

 

“What was that? What did she say?” Amy asked, wondering what had set them all in motion.

 

“Coordinates,” the Doctor answered as he completed the sequence. “Jamie, go open the door for her, please.”

 

On screen, River told the man, “Like I said on the dance floor, you might want to find something to hang onto.” She blew a kiss toward the camera as the airlock door behind her blew open and she was sucked out into space.

 

Jamie ran over to the doors and opened them. He watched as the woman they saw on the video was pulled through open space towards the TARDIS by the air corridor the ship had created for her. Suddenly, Jamie found himself on the floor, with the strange woman landing on top of him.

 

“Oh, James! I'm so sorry. Doctor, follow that ship!” River called as she helped James up from the floor and they shut the doors. River and James rushed back up to the console to help.

 

“They've gone into warp drive,” Rose announced as she flicked a few switches to try to keep up.

 

“We'll catch them, don't worry your pretty little head, love,” the Doctor told her.

 

“I can help, dad! I've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, and charted the ship to its destination,” Jamie announced as he typed furiously on the keyboard.

 

“Brilliant, Jamie! Nice work,” his father praised as he completed the flight sequence and they landed with a thump.

 

“Well, James always has been a better pilot than you, Sweetie,” River said with a teasing smile.

 

The Doctor's jaw dropped as he looked at her with great offence. Rose came over to rub his shoulder placatingly. “She's just winding you up. Jamie learned it from you after all,” Rose told him.

 

“Well, the TARDIS actually showed me some of that. Also, I was reading the manual I found in the library that dad said he didn't have anymore,” Jamie replied.

 

Amy stifled a laugh behind her hand and River just crossed her arms and smiled smugly at the disgruntled Time Lord. The Doctor took Rose's hand and pulled her along as he stomped towards the doors.

 

“No, wait! Environment checks!” River called after them as she ran to the keyboard and ran a scan of the exterior.

 

“Oh yes, sorry. Quite right. Environment checks,” the Doctor said sarcastically as he opened the door and stuck his head outside. “Nice out.”

 

Rose laughed and smacked his shoulder playfully.

 

“We're somewhere in the Garn Belt. There's an atmosphere. Early indications suggest that...” River started listing, but the Doctor cut her off.

 

“We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System,” he began and River blinked confusedly as the same information showed up on the monitor in front of her. “Oxygen rich atmosphere, all toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day and... chances of rain later,” he added as he checked outside again.

 

“He thinks he's so smart when he does that,” River pouted.

 

“That's because he is,” Jamie replied.

 

“He's just showing off, James. Right then, why did they land here?” River asked.

 

“They didn't land. They crashed. You should've checked the Home Box,” the Doctor informed her and he went outside with Rose, eager to leave the presence of River for a little while.

 

He sighed a little and pulled his wife closer as they looked up at the crash wreckage. The ship sat atop a high cliff face in front of them as they stood on a cold, grey beach. It wasn't the kind of beach that Rose liked to visit. It reminded her too much of a lonely beach in Norway and she squeezed the Doctor's hand a little tighter. He could feel her melancholy thoughts and sent her feelings of comfort and reassurance.

 

“What caused it to crash?” Amy asked from behind them. Rose and the Doctor started a bit, not realizing that the others had finally followed them out of the TARDIS.

 

“Not me,” River replied.

 

“Nah, the airlock would've sealed seconds after you blew it. According to the Home Box, the warp engines had a phase shift. No survivors,” the Doctor informed them.

 

“A phase shift? That doesn't just happen. That would have to be sabotage,” Jamie said in surprise.

 

“I did warn them,” River responded as she shook her head and started typing into a handheld computer.

 

“You warned them about something in their vault, yeah? What was it?” Rose questioned.

 

“Well, at least the building was empty. Aplan temple. Unoccupied for centuries,” River informed them, ignoring Rose's query.

 

“Aren't you going to introduce us?” Amy asked the Doctor.

 

“Yes, of course. Rose, Jamie, Amy Pond, this is Professor River Song,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Ah! I'm going to be a Professor someday, am I? How exciting,” she said as she walked ahead of them and continued running some sort of scan on her handheld device. “Spoilers!” she shouted smugly.

 

The Doctor slumped a bit as he realized that he had inadvertently given her future information. Rose squeezed his hand again in support.

 

“Yeah, but who is she and how did she do that? She just left you a note in a museum,” Amy argued at the introduction that told her nothing new.

 

“Two things always guaranteed to show up in a museum. The Home Box of category four starliner and sooner or later, him. It's how he keeps score,” River teased knowingly.

 

“Well, she's got you pegged there, love,” Rose admitted.

 

“It's hilarious, isn't it?” River laughed with Amy as the Doctor just looked more and more picked on.

 

“I'm nobody's taxi service. I'm not going to be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a space ship,” the Doctor told her frustratedly.

 

“Well, it's a good thing that there are other Time Lords I can count on instead,” River replied. “There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die,” she said ominously.

 

“Isn't there always?” Rose commented.

 

River punched a few buttons on her device and then, held it up like a phone and began talking to someone, “You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal... James, dear, could you sonic me? I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon and your daddy's looking a bit put out at the moment.”

 

James flicked to a setting that would boost the signal on her computer and ran it over her device a few times. She ruffled his hair affectionately and finished her chat quickly.

 

“Why does she call you Sweetie?” Rose asked curiously, slightly miffed that the woman would presume to use a term of endearment with her husband.

 

“I don't know, she did that the last time I met her too,” the Doctor said with a sigh and followed where River and Jamie were headed.

 

“We have a minute. Shall we?” River asked him as she pulled out a very worn looking, blue diary and started flipping through the pages. “Where are we up to? Jamie is so young. Have we done the Bone Meadows?”

 

“What's that?” Rose asked, nodding at the book.

 

“Everyone stay away from it. That's her diary,” the Doctor warned and crossed his arms. He hated not knowing everything that was going on.

 

“Oh, you don't have diaries yet? Rose and Jamie ought to start one soon. I know you're too proud to bother with it, Doctor,” River noted.

 

“I don't understand,” Amy interjected.

 

“Time travel. We keep meeting in the wrong order,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Goodness, this really is early for you isn't it?” River said, slightly shocked that Rose, Jamie and Amy didn't know her at all. Even the Doctor didn't seem to know much about her.

 

Four swirls of wind and dust marked the abrupt transport of four soldiers nearby. They noticed Doctor Song and marched toward her. The leading officer said in a rather annoyed tone, “You promised me an army, Doctor Song.”

 

“No, I promised you the equivalent of an army. This is the Doctor, Rose and James,” River responded confidently.

 

The Doctor and Rose were not keen on being compared to an army and bristled a little when the soldier turned to them in surprised awe.

 

“Father Octavian, sir, ma'am,” he began with a salute toward the Doctor and Rose. “Bishop, second class. Twenty clerics at my command. The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?”

 

Rose looked at her husband and he turned to River for some explanation.

 

“Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?” she questioned in response.

 

 


	12. Time of Angels: Part Two

Chapter Twelve – The Time of Angels: Part Two

 

 

Once the drop ship delivered the rest of the soldiers, they set up a makeshift camp next to the cliff face. The Doctor, Rose, Jamie and Amy each found a place to sit nearby on some rocks. They stayed out of the way of the people running around and setting things up. While they were waiting, the Doctor explained a bit about the Weeping Angels.

 

“They're known as the lonely assassins. Whenever they are seen by any living thing, including each other, they turn to stone. It's a quantum lock. They have no control over it, as soon as they are seen, they are stone. And you can't kill a stone, but a stone can't kill you either. Until you look away or you blink. Then it isn't a stone anymore. They _are_ the only race though to kill you kindly. With a touch, they displace you in time. They are creatures of the abstract and live off potential energy. They pop you into the past and consume the energy of all the days you might have had,” the Doctor told them.

 

“So, we're fighting a statue?” Rose confirmed and the Doctor nodded as he watched River approaching with Father Octavian. She had changed from the black evening dress she was wearing before, into beige camouflage fatigues and army boots.

 

“The Angel, as far as we know, is still trapped in the ship. Our mission is to get inside and neutralize it. We can't get through up top, we'd be too close to the drives. According to this,” Octavian said as he showed them a map, “behind the cliff face there's a network of catacombs leading right up to the temple. We can blow through the base of the cliffs, get into the entrance chamber, then make our way up.”

 

“Oh, good,” the Doctor said sarcastically.

 

“Good, sir?” Octavian questioned.

 

“Catacombs. Probably dark ones. Dark catacombs, great,” the Doctor continued.

 

“Technically, I think it's called a maze of the dead,” Octavian clarified.

 

“Yeah, you can stop any time with the creepy factor,” Rose told him, squeezing the Doctor's arm.

 

Another soldier called Father Octavian away and he said, “Excuse me, sir, ma'am.”

 

“Ugh, I hate it when people call me ma'am,” Rose bristled.

 

“At least they aren't saluting us,” the Doctor told her.

 

“Ooo, you two are all grumpy today,” Amy commented playfully.

 

“A Weeping Angel, Amy, is one of the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life forms evolution has ever produced. And right now, one of them is trapped inside that wreckage and we're supposed to climb in after it with a screwdriver and a torch and assuming we survive the radiation long enough and assuming the whole ship doesn't explode in our faces, do something incredibly clever which I haven't actually thought of yet. That's the day facing Rose and I. And you're wondering why we're grumpy?” the Doctor responded testily. 

 

Jamie was behind them, balancing on some drift wood on the beach. He was listening to everything, but decided not to interrupt when his parents were so worried about this mission. He didn't think they would make him wait in the TARDIS. His father had learned long ago with his mother that decisions like that only led to them wandering off and getting into trouble. Jamie was rather like his mother in that respect and they were all safest when they stuck together.

 

River and Octavian joined them again once the soldiers were setting up explosives to blast into the base of the cliff.

 

“Sir, have you encountered the Angels before?” Father Octavian asked the Doctor.

 

“Once, on Earth, a long time ago. But those were scavengers, barely surviving. Where did this one come from?” he asked.

 

“Oh, pulled from the ruins of Razbahan, end of last century. It's been in private hands ever since. Dormant all that time,” River answered as she checked some notes.

 

“There's a difference between dormant and patient,” the Doctor lectured. “Now, that hyperdrive would've split on impact. The whole ship's going to be flooded with drive burn radiation, cracked electrons, gravity storms. Deadly to almost any living thing,” he informed them.

 

“Deadly to an Angel?” Octavian asked hopefully.

 

“Dinner to an Angel. The longer we leave it there, the stronger it will grow. Who built that temple? Are they still around?” the Doctor continued as his mind whirled through possible plans.

 

“The Aplans. Indigenous life form. They died out four hundred years ago,” River replied.

 

“Two hundred years later, the planet was terraformed. Currently there are six billion human colonists,” Octavian added.

 

“Whoo! You lot, you're everywhere. You're like rabbits! I'll never get done saving you,” the Doctor shouted.

 

“Sir, if there is a clear and present danger to the local population...” Father Octavian began, but was cut off abruptly.

 

“Oh, there is. Bad as it gets. Whenever you boys are ready, let's get going,” the Doctor told him curtly.

 

Octavian spoke into a communicator, “Verger, how are we doing with those explosives?” Listening to the reply, he then called for Doctor Song to follow him.

 

“Two minutes! I'll be right there,” River replied as she moved to show the Doctor and Rose something she hoped would be helpful. “I found this. Definitive work on the Angels. Well, the only one. Written by a madman. It's barely readable, but I've marked a few passages,” she told them as she handed the Doctor an old, handwritten journal.

 

The Doctor flipped through the book quickly, then handed it to Jamie, who did the same before passing it along to his mother. Rose looked through at a more normal pace as she noted the passages that River had marked.

 

“Not bad. Bit slow in the middle. Didn't you hate his girlfriend? Ok, a few important things to note. There was something about the dark...” the Doctor trailed off as he moved to look over Rose's shoulder.

 

“Oh, James, I've never seen you so young,” River sighed as she studied the eight year old curiously.

 

“Well obviously, since I've never met you before, this would be the youngest you've ever seen me,” Jamie replied, not sure what to make of the scrutiny. “Why do you call me James? Everyone always calls me Jamie.”

 

“You asked me to, the first time I ever met you. And that's all I'm going to say about that,” River told him with a wink.

 

“Here it is,” Rose spoke up as she read the passage aloud. “In darkness they thrive. With the absence of sight there is no safe path to take.”

 

“Ok, so they probably have some kind of sense that means they don't need to see in the dark,” the Doctor interpreted. “Let's make sure we have a lot of lights with us, one Angel shouldn't be able to drain them all.”

 

Rose passed the book back to River, who stored it in her pocket. Taking Jamie's hand on one side and the Doctor's on the other, Rose steeled herself for the upcoming task. It was unusual for them to be assigned things like this and even more unusual to be working with soldiers. The little family flinched when the explosives blasted nearby and Octavian called over to inform them that they had access to the tunnels.

 

Making sure everyone had a torch, the Doctor announced, “Ok, now it starts.” He held tight to Rose's hand and they felt the fierce determination flare within each other.

 

Jamie hung back to walk with Amy and River once everyone had made it down the ladder into the large underground space. The dark room echoed as if it were huge and Jamie's torch light didn't reach the ceiling.

 

“Do we have a gravity globe?” the Doctor asked Octavian and one of the soldiers nearby handed him a large, white ball.

 

“Where are we? What is this?” Amy asked.

 

“It's an Aplan Mortarium, sometimes called a Maze of the Dead,” River answered her.

 

“What's that?” Amy wondered, still confused.

 

“Well, if you happen to be a creature of living stone,” the Doctor began and kicked the gravity globe high in the air. “The perfect hiding place,” he concluded when the globe floated in the air and provided enough light for them to see hundreds of statues scattered throughout the levels of the space.

 

“I guess this makes it a bit trickier,” Octavian commented as he gaped at the situation they faced.

 

“That would be a bit of an understatement, yeah?” Rose said. “So glad you boys invited us along.”

 

“A stone Angel on the loose amongst stone statues. A lot harder than I'd prayed for,” Father Octavian stated warily.

 

“A needle in a haystack,” River added.

 

“A needle that looks like hay. A hay-like needle of death. A hay-like needle of death in a haystack of, er, statues... No, yours was fine,” the Doctor rambled and Rose couldn't help but allow the derailment of his train of thought to make her laugh slightly. The silliness of his comment released some of the tension that had been building in her.

 

“Right. Check every single statue in this chamber. You know what you're looking for. Complete visual inspection. One question, how do we fight it?” Octavian asked as he issued orders to his clerics.

 

“We find it, and hope,” the Doctor told him as he led the way onward.

 

Jamie noticed that Father Octavian pulled River back for a whispered conversation before she joined them. The Bishop had also ordered a couple of soldiers to check out a side chamber before rejoining the group.

 

“Is everything alright, River?” Jamie asked when she caught up to him and Amy.

 

“Yes, of course, James. Nothing to worry about,” she answered a little too quickly.

 

“Why is he so cross with you?” he pressed for more information.

 

“Oh, he's always cross. I owed them a favour, that's why I'm helping them right now. He's worried that we won't complete the mission and since I was helping, it would be my fault,” River told him.

 

“That's rubbish,” Jamie replied and frowned as they kept working their way through the dark passageway.

 

“So, what's a Maze of the Dead?” Amy asked, trying to change the subject.

 

“Oh, it's not as bad as it sounds. It's just a labyrinth with dead people buried in the walls... Ok, that was fairly bad,” River admitted. She took something out of her pocket and said to Amy, “Right. Give me your arm. This won't hurt a bit.”

 

River proceeded to press a florescent green injection into Amy's forearm that caused her to yelp in pain.

 

“There, you see. I lied. It's a viro-stabilizer. Stabilizes your metabolism against radiation, drive burn, anything. You're going to need it when we get up to that ship,” River told her and rubbed the injection site for a moment to ease the pain.

 

“Do I need that too? Or mum?” Jamie asked her curiously.

 

“No, dear. You and your dad will be just fine, and your mum is even safer,” River informed him as she started them walking again.

 

“What do you mean? Mum isn't a Time Lord. She heals quickly, but she's still human,” Jamie argued.

 

River laughed and said, “James, your mother hasn't been human for a long time.”

 

Jamie frowned again and contemplated what little information he had been told about his mother's changed biology. He knew that she healed quickly and was apparently not aging. His parents had said that it had something to do with her looking into the heart of the TARDIS at one point to save his dad from the Daleks. He hadn't been able to determine what kind of effect that would have on her and neither had his father, but River was from the future. She would know if they ever figured out what it meant.

 

When gunfire erupted ahead of them, the trio looked at each other worriedly and ran towards the sound. They saw Father Octavian scolding one of the soldiers as the Doctor and Rose watched them from nearby.

 

“Sorry, sorry. I thought... I thought it looked at me,” the soldier gasped as he tried to calm himself.

 

“We know what the Angel looks like. Is that the Angel?” Octavian chastised.

 

“No, sir,” the soldier replied.

 

“No, sir, it is not. According to the Doctor, we are facing an enemy of unknowable power and infinite evil. So, it would be good, it would be very good, if we could all remain calm in the presence of decor,” the Bishop told him harshly.

 

The Doctor approached the nervous soldier and tried to take over in a more friendly manner. “What's your name?” he asked the soldier.

 

“Bob, sir,” he replied, still slightly out of breath.

 

“Ah, that's a great name. I love Bob,” the Doctor told him with a reassuring grin. Rose moved to the soldier's other side and rubbed his shoulder a bit to help him calm down further.

 

“It's a Sacred Name. We all have Sacred Names. They're given to us in the service of the Church,” Octavian interrupted curtly.

 

“Sacred Bob. More like Scared Bob now, eh?” the Doctor asked him.

 

“Yes, sir,” Bob answered with an embarrassed look at the Doctor.

 

“Ah, good. Scared keeps you fast. Anyone in this room who isn't scared is a moron. Carry on,” the Doctor told Bob with a pointed look at Octavian.

 

“Rude, Doctor,” Rose called after him as he walked away.

 

“And still not ginger!” he replied without turning back. 

 

Rose shook her head and followed her husband. She heard Octavian order Bob to wait for Christian and Angelo and guard the approach. Considering how nervous Bob was right now, she thought that maybe not being on the front lines was probably for the best.

 

“Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse? There's a whole ship up there,” Amy asked as she shone her torch at the ceiling curiously.

 

“Incredible builders, the Aplans,” River said reassuringly.

 

“We had dinner with their Chief Architect once. Do you remember them, love? Two heads are better than one?” the Doctor asked Rose.

 

“Oh! Were they Aplans?” she asked, remembering them making that joke several times through dinner. She couldn't remember their names at the moment, which distracted her as she tried to think.

 

“What, you mean you helped him?” Amy asked.

 

“No, I mean he had two heads,” the Doctor replied.

 

Jamie's head shot up at that statement and he looked around at the statues. “Umm, dad...” he called after his father.

 

“Lovely species, the Aplans. We should visit them again some time,” the Doctor commented, not hearing his son.

 

“I thought they were all dead?” Amy argued.

 

“So is Virginia Woolf. We're on her bowling team,” Rose told Amy with a smile.

 

“They're very relaxed, sort of cheerful. Well, that's having two heads, of course. You're never short of a snog with an extra head,” the Doctor continued.

 

“Dad? Mum? We have a problem,” Jamie said more insistently.

 

“What is it, James?” River asked, turning to him in favour of listening to the Doctor rambling.

 

“Of course, then they started having laws against self-marrying. I mean, what was that about?” the Doctor persisted in babbling, even after Rose stopped to see what Jamie was saying.

 

“If the Aplans had two heads, why don't the statues in their temple?” Jamie pointed out.

 

The Doctor froze and looked up at the statues surrounding them. “Oh,” he said quietly.

 

Rose was a little taken aback when River suddenly pulled Jamie in for a hug as she looked worriedly at the statues as well.

 

“Oh my god,” Rose gasped and the Doctor moved to take her hand supportively.

 

“How could we have not noticed that?” River asked.

 

“Low level perception filter, or maybe we're thick,” the Doctor replied and started looking around for a relatively safe corner to back everyone into.

 

Father Octavian noticed that their group was suddenly very worried about something and moved to see what the problem was. “What's wrong, sir?” he asked.

 

“Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger,” the Doctor announced, frantically looking from one statue to the next as he tried to make a new plan.

 

“What danger?” Octavian questioned.

 

“The Aplans have two heads, Bishop. So why don't the statues?” Jamie pointed out again.

 

“Everyone, over there,” the Doctor told them all as he ushered them towards an alcove that was empty of statues for the moment. “Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak. Ok, I want you all to switch off your torches.”

 

“Are you sure this is a good idea, love?” Rose asked nervously.

 

“No. Just do it. Ok, I'm going to turn off this one too, just for a moment,” he told them and everyone held their breath as they were plunged into darkness.

 

When the light came back on, they saw that the surrounding statues had all turned towards them and some had moved a few steps closer.

 

“Oh, my god! They've moved!” Amy cried and grabbed Jamie's hand.

 

Everyone else turned their torches back on as the Doctor ran down the passageway to check the statues that they had passed earlier. He ran back a few seconds later in a bit of a panic.

 

“They're Angels. All of them,” he told them as he grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her along with him.

 

“But they can't be,” River denied, but ushered Jamie and Amy ahead of her quickly.

 

“Clerics, keep watching them,” the Doctor ordered.

 

“How are they able to move in a group like that though, love. You said, if they saw each other they would be stone too,” Rose wondered.

 

“Well, so far, they've been moving in the dark. That book seemed to imply some kind of sense that allowed them to hunt in the dark without sight. Also, look at these ones. Their eyes are all mangled. As they gain energy from the ship, that will change though. They'll get their regular forms back,” the Doctor deduced as they kept moving as quickly as possible, while watching the statues around them.

 

“But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear,” River told them.

 

“Could they have been here already?” Amy asked and stumbled a bit as she tripped down the rocky hallway.

 

“The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“Nobody knows,” River replied.

 

“We know now,” Rose interjected.

 

“They don't look like Angels,” Octavian protested.

 

“And they're not fast. You said they were fast. They should have had us by now,” Amy added.

 

“Look at them though. They're dying, losing their form, as I said before. They've been starving and now that they can absorb the radiation from the ship, they will get that form back. Don't you see? The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up,” the Doctor explained.

 

“We're surrounded on all sides now. How are we going to get out of here, dad?” Jamie asked worriedly.

 

Octavian pulled out his communicator and started speaking to his subordinates, “Bob, Angelo, Christian, come in, please. Any of you, come in.”

 

“It's Bob, sir. Sorry, sir,” came the reply through the radio.

 

“Bob, are Angelo and Christian with you? All the statues are active. I repeat, all the statues are active,” Octavian informed him.

 

“I know, sir. Angelo and Christian are dead, sir. The statues killed them, sir,” Bob answered.

 

The Doctor was concerned with the statement that the Angels had killed people. That wasn't the way they worked. They displaced people in time, without a trace. He grabbed the communicator from Octavian despite his protests.

 

“Bob, Sacred Bob, it's me, the Doctor,” he interrupted. “Where are you now?”

 

“I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal,” Bob replied simply.

 

“Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I? Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Snapped their necks, sir,” he answered coldly. There was something in the way he replied. He had been terrified before, and now he sounded perfectly calm while describing the brutal murder of his comrades.

 

“That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you. They displace you in time. Unless they needed the bodies for something,” the Doctor contemplated.

 

Octavian interrupted the Doctor to address his soldier, “Bob, did you check their data packs for vital signs? We may be able to initiate a rescue plan...”

 

“Oh, don't be an idiot. The Angels don't leave you alive,” the Doctor snapped at him. “Bob, keep running. But tell me, how did you escape?”

 

“I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me, too,” Bob said calmly.

 

Rose gasped and moved to hug her son tightly.

 

“What do you mean, the Angel killed you?” the Doctor asked warily.

 

“Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something,” Bob replied eerily.

 

“If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion,” Bob explained, his tone pleasant as if this was a friendly chat.

 

“So, when you say you're on your way up to us...” the Doctor began.

 

“It's the Angel that's coming, sir. Yes,” Bob clarified.

 

They all started moving to escape through the wreckage of the ship once the Doctor confirmed that Bob was the Angel that was originally in the ship. It was their only way out now. But as they were running through the passageways, Amy caught her foot in a crevice. She twisted it as she fell and was wedged into the hole even tighter.

 

“We'll get you out, Amy. Don't worry,” Jamie told her as she cried in pain. The Doctor and Jamie worked to free her and when they did, they pulled her arms over their shoulders to support her as they continued towards the ship.

 

They joined the rest of the group in the next open cavern and the ship was visible above them. Another gravity globe floated between them and the ship, lighting the whole space and stopping the Angels at the doorways. The Doctor passed Amy over to River as he moved to assess the situation.

 

“Well, there it is, the Byzantium,” Octavian observed.

 

“It's got to be thirty feet above us. How do we get up there?” River asked, the obvious problem with their original plan becoming apparent.

 

“Check all these exits. I want them all secure,” Octavian ordered and the soldiers moved to watch the entrances to the space and pointed their guns uselessly at the statues.

 

The torches and the gravity globe were all flickering threateningly as the Angels approached on all sides. There were only four soldiers left with Octavian now.

 

“It's the Angels, they're draining the power from the lights for themselves,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Which means we won't be able to see them,” Octavian pointed out the obvious problem.

 

“Which means we can't stay here,” the Doctor replied as he tried to work out the best way to get them up to the ship.

 

“Any suggestions?” River asked, her stress level obviously increasing.

 

“The statues are advancing on all sides. We don't have the climbing equipment to reach the Byzantium,” the Bishop continued to state the obvious.

 

“There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you two have a really good idea,” River snarked at the Doctor and Rose.

 

“There's always a way out,” the Doctor argued as his mind raced through possibilities.

 

“Inconveniently circumstanced,” Rose added as she took her husband's hand again and reined in her panic so she could think more clearly.

 

“Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please?” Bob called from the communicator.

 

“Hello, Angels. What's your problem?” the Doctor said confidently.

 

“Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels with be with you shortly. Sorry, sir,” Bob announced.

 

“There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end,” Bob baited him.

 

“Which is?”

 

“I died in fear,” Bob told the Doctor plainly.

 

“I'm sorry?” the Doctor asked incredulously.

 

“You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down,” Bob taunted him.

 

“What are they doing?” Amy whispered to River.

 

“They're trying to make him angry,” River replied quietly.

 

“Well, that's a sure way to do it,” Jamie acknowledged.

 

Rose gripped the Doctor's hand tightly as she sent him feelings of support and reassurance.

 

“I'm sorry, sir. The Angels were very keen for you to know that,” Bob repeated.

 

“Well then, the Angels have made another mistake, because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry your dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever is left of you, they will be sorrier,” the Doctor informed him.

 

“But you're trapped, sir, and about to die,” Bob argued.

 

“Yeah. We're trapped. And you know what? Speaking of traps, did you know that this trap has got a great big mistake in it?” the Doctor asked Bob.

 

“What mistake, sir?” Bob questioned curiously.

 

“Trust me?” the Doctor asked with a nod to each of his companions.

 

“Yeah,” Amy replied.

 

“Of course,” River added.

 

“Every day, dad,” Jamie told him.

 

“With my last breath, love,” Rose confirmed.

 

“You lot, trust me?” he asked the soldiers.

 

“We have faith, sir,” Octavian answered as the soldiers nodded.

 

“Then give me your gun. I'm about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, jump,” the Doctor told everyone as he took the Bishop's gun.

 

“Jump where?” Octavian asked, clearly confused.

 

“Just jump, high as you can. You two, hold tight to Amy. Amy, give as much of a jump as you can to help them get you off the ground. High as you can go. Leap of faith. On my signal,” the Doctor explained.

 

“What signal?” Octavian questioned nervously.

 

“You won't miss it,” the Doctor informed him.

 

“Sorry, can I ask again? What mistake did we make, sir?” Bob asked through the communicator.

 

Taking a firm hold of his wife's hand, the Doctor pointed the gun upward. “Oh, big mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you, there are two things that you never put in a trap? Two things that in the entire multiverse are too powerful and evasive to ever be held. Two things that defy the word impossible and cannot even be contained by the walls of reality. Do you know what those two things are?” the Doctor asked Bob angrily.

 

“What, sir?”

 

“The Bad Wolf and the Oncoming Storm,” the Doctor replied as he pulled the trigger on the gun.

 

 


	13. Flesh and Stone: Part One

Chapter Thirteen – Flesh and Stone: Part One

 

At the sound of the shot, everyone jumped and after a brief, stomach flipping feeling, found themselves landing on a metal floor rather than stone. The lights had gone momentarily, but there were lights shining up from the floor and everyone looked around confusedly as to what had happened.

 

“Up. Look up,” the Doctor instructed while he sonicked a hatch on the floor.

 

“Are you alright, Amy?” Jamie asked, helping her back onto her good leg and supporting her as best he could.

 

“Yeah, what happened?” Amy replied.

 

“We jumped,” River answered her question simply.

 

“Alright, everyone please look up and keep looking up while the Doctor explains, instead of all this wasting time asking questions instead of following life saving instructions,” Rose interrupted.

 

“Thank you, dearest. So, everyone think about it for a moment, while you are looking up and I open this door. The ship crashed with the power still on. So, the artificial gravity is also still on. One good jump, and up we fell. I shot out the grav globe to give us an updraft, and here we are,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Dad, how are they moving as a group with the lights from the ship still shining and their faces restored now?” Jamie questioned while continuing to stare at the statues above them.

 

“Not completely sure. I suppose for one, they are looking up at us now and not toward each other. Also, they could probably play a bit of leap frog, the ones in the back moving up until they get to the peripheral of the ones in front. So long as they kept a bit of space between them and focused their eyes forward, they could move that way even with the lights on. Ah! Here we go,” the Doctor added as he finally got the hatch open

 

One of the lights from the ship exploded then and startled everyone into motion towards the entrance to the Byzantium. “They're taking out the lights! Keep looking at the Angels and get into the ship, now. Quickly, all of you,” the Doctor instructed as he ushered each of them into the door.

 

The first few were disoriented when the gravity suddenly shifted to the floor of the corridor which was perpendicular to where they had just been standing.

 

“It's just a corridor. The gravity orientates to the floor. Now keep moving and keep looking at those Angels,” the Doctor assured them and urged Jamie and River to get Amy through the doorway. He and Rose followed them and the remaining soldiers took up the rear, keeping their eyes and guns trained on the Angels as more of the exterior lights went out.

 

As soon as the Doctor was through the door, he rushed to where Jamie was already working on the control panel. They managed to shut the door they just came through in time to hear several loud impacts with the hull outside.

 

“The Angels, presumably they can jump up too?” Octavian asked, guessing at what the noises might have been.

 

“Oh, they're here, now,” the Doctor replied and a bulkhead down the hall started to close. “Run!” he shouted, but it closed before anyone could get through.

 

“This whole place is a death trap,” Octavian complained.

 

“No, it's a time bomb. Well... it's a death trap and a time bomb. And now it's a dead end. Nobody panic. Oh, just me then. What's through here?” the Doctor rambled nervously.

 

“Secondary flight deck,” River replied, being the only person who had been on the ship before.

 

Jamie and the Doctor ripped open a panel next to the bulkhead and began to work on the wiring inside while Rose looked around for another switch or panel to control it.

 

“Ok, so we've basically run up the inside of a chimney, yeah? So what if the gravity fails?” Amy asked, her voice trembling slightly.

 

“I've thought about that,” the Doctor told her.

 

“And?” Amy prompted.

 

“And we'll all plunge to our deaths. See? I've thought about it,” the Doctor admitted and went back to work on the wires in front of him.

 

“It's no good, dad. The security protocols are still online. There's no way to override them,” Jamie said in frustration and sucked on his burnt finger when a circuit sparked at him.

 

“It's impossible!” the Doctor shouted.

 

“How impossible is it?” Rose questioned.

 

“Two minutes,” the Doctor replied as the hatch to the outside of the ship opened and several Angels appeared in the hallway as the lights flickered. Everyone began to panic as they came closer with each drain on the power.

 

The Doctor and Jamie worked together seamlessly. Finally, the Doctor interrupted the frightened shouts with, “We've isolated the lighting grid, they can't drain the power now.”

 

“Good work, Doctor,” Octavian said while maintaining his vigil of staring at the oncoming Angels.

 

“Well, it's good in a lot of ways and not so good in others,” Jamie admitted.

 

“Ok, I'll bite, what part is not so good?” Rose asked as she helped River support Amy while the boys were busy.

 

“Well, there's only one way to open this door. That is to route all the power in this section through the door control,” the Doctor explained.

 

“And the part that's not good about that is?” River questioned.

 

“We have to include all the lights in that too. We'll need to turn out all of the lights in order to get through this door,” Jamie told them.

 

“How long for?” Father Octavian asked him, already steeling himself for battle.

 

“Fraction of a second. Maybe longer. Maybe quite a bit longer,” the Doctor replied as he paced and fidgeted with his hands.

 

“Maybe?” the Bishop questioned, not looking impressed.

 

“I'm guessing! We're being attacked by statues in a crashed ship. There isn't a manual for this,” the Doctor argued. Rose took his hands in hers and met his eyes to help calm his racing hearts a bit. He took a few deep breaths with her.

 

“Doctor, we lost the torches. We'll be in total darkness,” Amy said.

 

“No other way. Bishop?” the Doctor prompted, he would need everyone backing him on this in order for it to work.

 

“Doctor Song, I've lost good Clerics today. You trust them?” Octavian asked River. He knew what she was capable of, but not the others.

 

“I trust all of them with my life,” River stated sincerely.

 

Octavian moved to whisper so that only River could hear, “I'm taking your word, because you're the only one who really knows this family. But their trust in you only goes as long as they don't know who you are. You cost me any more men, and I might just tell them. Understood?”

 

“Understood,” she answered.

 

“Ok, Doctor. We've got your back,” Octavian told him reluctantly.

 

With Rose ready to turn the wheel of the bulkhead once it released and River and Jamie supporting the injured Amy between them, the soldiers prepared to fire continuously on the Angels. While the bullets wouldn't harm them, the sparks created from the ricochets would create minimal light to slow them slightly in the seconds they needed to escape.

 

The few precious seconds that they were in darkness were terrifying for everyone, but in the end, they were all safely on one side of the bulkhead, and the Angels were on the other. Rose and the Doctor were the last ones to come through the bulkhead before it shut behind them with a loud clang.

 

They ran down a short corridor and entered the secondary flight deck. The Doctor leapt over the console and immediately started searching through the computer for anything that might help them. Jamie moved to his side to search as well and Rose started searching the walls for other escape routes.

 

The Angels began to pound on the three main entrances to the room and the soldiers used magnetic seals on the doors that should have stopped them, but only seemed to slow them down.

 

“We need another way out of here,” River complained.

 

“There isn't one,” Octavian told her.

 

“Oh really? Look what I've found!” Rose sang happily as she moved a large crate to reveal clamps holding down a large door in the back wall.

 

“Oh! You beauty!” the Doctor cried and picked her up into a spinning hug, placing her back on her feet with a quick kiss.

 

“What is it?” Amy asked, not sure why they were so pleased with this.

 

“This is a galaxy class ship. Goes for years between planet falls. So, what do they need?” the Doctor prompted.

 

“Of course,” River said in sudden realization.

 

“Of course what? What do they need?” Amy questioned, still confused.

 

“They need to breathe, Amy,” Jamie told her as he moved to work on the clamp opposite the one his mum and dad were opening.

 

The door lifted once the clamps were released and the Doctor put an arm over Rose's shoulders for a moment. “Always so observant, my love,” he told her and planted another kiss on her cheek before grabbing her hand to pull her along behind him again.

 

“But that's... that's a....” Amy stuttered as she took in the huge space beyond the doorway. The room was filled with giant trees, grass and moss.

 

“It's an oxygen factory,” River told her and began to urge Amy forward as she continued to support her.

 

“It's a forest,” Amy said with an awe-filled sigh.

 

“Yeah, it's a forest. It's an oxygen factory,” River confirmed.

 

“And, if we're lucky, an escape route,” the Doctor added as he and Rose moved to higher ground to try and see if there was a path through the artificial forest. “Is there another exit? Scan the architecture, we don't have time to get lost in there.”

 

“On it. Stay where you are until I've checked the Rad levels,” Octavian responded and began working on a similar handheld device to River's.

 

“But... trees.... on a space ship?” Amy asked, still not comprehending what was in front of her.

 

“Oh, even better than trees, Amy!” Jamie called to her as he moved to the base of a nearby tree. “They've got technology running through each and every one of them. The cables become sensors on the hull. The whole forest sucks in starlight and releases oxygen. There's a whole mini-climate in here, it even rains!” he explained as he opened a panel on the tree to reveal a mass of glowing, blue cables inside.

 

“Ok, that is impressive, I've got to admit,” Amy replied with a laugh.

 

“Doctor, there's an exit, far end of the ship, into the primary flight deck,” Octavian reported.

 

“Oh, good. That's where we need to go,” the Doctor acknowledged.

 

“Plotting a safe path now,” the Bishop told him.

 

“Doctor? Excuse me? Hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir,” they were suddenly interrupted by a voice over the communicator that the Doctor had almost forgotten was in his pocket.

 

The Doctor strolled back into the secondary flight deck and flopped into a chair as he answered the call from the Angels, “Ah, there you are, Angel Bob. How's life? ... Sorry, bad subject.”

 

“The Angels are wondering what you hope to achieve,” Angel Bob replied.

 

“Achieve? We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging. It's nice in here. Consoles, comfy chairs, a forest. How's things with you?” the Doctor conversed casually as he took Rose's hand and played idly with her fingers.

 

“The Angels are feasting, sir. Soon we will be able to absorb enough power to consume this vessel, this world, and all the stars and worlds beyond,” Bob informed him.

 

“Well, we've got comfy chairs. Did I mention?” the Doctor countered. Rose smirked at him.

 

“We have no need of comfy chairs,” Bob replied.

 

“I made him say comfy chairs,” the Doctor said with a laugh and Rose couldn't help but laugh as well. That was what they always did, laugh as the universe fell apart around them.

 

“We shall have dominion over all of time and space,” Angel Bob continued.

 

“Get a life, Bob. Oops, sorry again. There's power on this ship, but nowhere near that much,” the Doctor argued.

 

“With respect, sir, there's more power on this ship than you yet understand,” Bob answered and suddenly there were loud screeching sounds coming from all around them.

 

“What's that noise? Dear god, what is it?” River asked as she held Amy closer.

 

“They're back,” Octavian announced, though they had never really left.

 

“It's hard to put in your terms, Doctor Song, but as best I understand it, the Angels are laughing,” Bob explained.

 

“Laughing?” the Doctor asked quietly.

 

“Because you haven't noticed yet, sir. The Doctor in the TARDIS hasn't noticed,” Bob teased while maintaining his ominously unemotional tone.

 

“There's something I've missed,” the Doctor said as he stood from the chair and looked around.

 

Rose looked up at the wall behind him and her mouth dropped open in shock.

 

“Umm, dad...” Jamie said as he pointed to the same place Rose was staring.

 

The Doctor turned around slowly and saw a large, glowing crack in the metal wall over the doorway where they had entered. The crack grew larger as they watched.

 

“That's... that's... that's like the crack from my bedroom wall from when I was a little girl,” Amy stuttered fearfully and Jamie again moved to her side to assist River in supporting her before she collapsed from fear as well as her injured leg.

 

“Ok, enough, we're moving out,” Octavian announced.

 

“Agreed. Doctor?” River called to him as he moved closer to the crack and pushed a crate over beneath it.

 

“Yeah, fine,” the Doctor told her distractedly.

 

“River, get Amy and Jamie out of here and through that forest. You won't be able to go fast with Amy, but we'll catch up. We're great runners, yeah?” Rose told them.

 

Reluctantly, Jamie and River pulled Amy into the forest as quickly as she could go.

 

“So, what are you?” the Doctor asked quietly when he climbed up on the crate to scan the crack with his sonic. “Oh, that's bad. Ah, that's extremely very not good,” he added when he looked at the scan results.

 

“I think it's time we got out of here, love,” Rose said nervously when they were suddenly surrounded by Angels.

 

“Right you are. Keep looking at them, do not blink,” he told her and pulled her with him over the console since the Angels were closing on both sides. They moved back to back as they watched the Angels around them and slid towards the forest door.

 

The Doctor took her hand and whispered into her mind,  _“When I squeeze your hand, run.”_

 

They were almost to the door when he finally squeezed her hand and as they both turned to run, they found that one of the Angels had grabbed the collars of both of their jackets.

 

They both stood there a moment in shock as they waited to die, then looked at each other. They turned slightly to look back at the Angels.

 

“Why are we not dead then?” the Doctor asked rhetorically.

 

They saw all of the Angels, other than the one holding them, reaching their arms up towards the crack as if worshipping it. The Angel with a hold on their jackets stared at them with a frightening scowl.

 

“Good, and not so good... Oh, this isn't even a little bit good. I mean, is that it? Is that the power that brought you here? That's pure Time Energy. You can't feed on that. That's not power, that's the fire at the end of the universe,” he rambled at them as he urged Rose to pull her arms out of the sleeves of her jacket and did the same for himself. 

 

“I'll tell you something else... Never let me talk!” the Doctor shouted over his shoulder as the two of them ran into the forest, leaving their jackets behind.

 


	14. Flesh and Stone: Part Two

Chapter Fourteen – Flesh and Stone: Part Two

 

Jamie and River pulled Amy along through the forest and often had to lift her over some of the larger branches on the ground as they followed the soldiers.

 

“You seem to be missing someone Amy,” River commented knowingly.

 

“Well, he was a little bit busy when I left, yeah?” Amy replied, slightly flustered.

 

Jamie wasn't sure who they were talking about, but just listened intently. He was fairly sure that River wouldn't have brought it up in his presence if it were something he shouldn't know about.

 

“Why are you running, Amy?” River asked her pointedly.

 

“I don't know! I should be happy about it, but instead I'm just scared,” Amy told her and she stumbled painfully.

 

Jamie and River found a spot to sit her down as they checked her ankle.

 

“We can't keep pushing her like this. We should wait for mum and dad,” Jamie said as he checked the readings on his sonic.

 

“We can't stay here. We've got to keep moving,” Octavian protested.

 

“We wait for Rose and the Doctor,” River told him.

 

“Our mission is to make this wreckage safe and neutralize the Angels. Until that is achieved...” Octavian began, but was quickly interrupted.

 

“Father Octavian, when Rose and the Doctor are in the room, your one and only mission is to keep them alive long enough to get everyone else home. And trust me, it's not easy. Now, if they're dead back there, I'll never forgive myself. And if they're alive, I'll never forgive them,” she informed the Bishop, then noticed Jamie smirking at her. “And they're standing right behind me, aren't they?”

 

“Oh yeah,” the Doctor replied and jumped down to the clearing, pulling Rose behind him.

 

“I hate you,” River told him with a scowl.

 

“Nah, you don't,” Rose laughed and patter her shoulder.

 

“Bishop, the Angels are in the forest,” the Doctor informed Octavian.

 

“We need visual contact on every line of approach,” the Bishop ordered his men.

 

“How did you two get past them?” River asked worriedly.

 

“I found a crack in the wall and told them it was the end of the universe,” the Doctor responded curtly.

 

“What was it really?” Jamie asked.

 

“The end of the universe,” the Doctor answered. “So, let's see then,” he added as he scanned Amy's injured leg.

 

“Right. We can't keep dragging Amy haphazardly through the forest and we can't all keep an eye out for Angels if we're carrying her. So, a few of us are going to scout ahead and find the quickest path through here. Once we get to the Primary Flight Deck, we stabilize the wreckage, stop the Angels and get everyone out of here safe and sound,” the Doctor informed everyone.

 

“And how exactly do you plan on stopping the Angels?” River asked him.

 

“I don't know yet, I haven't stopped talking,” the Doctor replied. “Father, you and your Clerics are going to stay here, look after Amy. River, you know this ship better than the rest of us, so you can help me. Jamie, I might need your help with the computer systems. Rose, would you stay here to look after Amy as well?” he asked, knowing that they worked best together, but he trusted her more to take care of Amy than the soldiers.

 

“That's fine, is there a setting on my sonic that could help heal her leg at all? I'd like to do something useful while we wait for you,” Rose replied.

 

“Yes, hand it here. It won't heal it much, but should bring down the swelling and pain,” he said as he flicked her sonic to the right setting, then snogged her thoroughly before heading off with the others.

 

The Doctor licked his finger and held it up in the air. “So, the Primary Flight Deck is a quarter of a mile that way. We get there and then... I'll do a thing,” he announced, leading the way.

 

“What thing?” River questioned indignantly.

 

“I don't know. It's a thing in progress. Respect the thing. Moving out!” the Doctor responded confidently.

 

“Doctor, I'm coming with you. My Clerics will look after your wife and Miss Pond. These are my best men. They'd lay down their lives in the protection of their charges,” Octavian said, following the small group.

 

“I don't need you,” the Doctor informed him, preferring to have more people protecting Amy and Rose from the Angels.

 

“I don't care. Where Doctor Song goes, I go,” the Bishop replied, allowing no arguments to sway him.

 

“What? You two engaged or something?” the Doctor asked and watched carefully for River's reaction. He knew that she was somehow related to him, based on her knowledge of the part of his name that was shared with Jamie. He didn't feel a link with her that would indicate she was his daughter, although they could have adopted her. The most likely explanation was that she would marry into their family, so this reaction might give him a clue.

 

River stiffened immediately and looked nervously between Octavian, the Doctor and Jamie, but didn't say a word.

 

Octavian looked at River calculatingly before he said, “Yes, in a manner of speaking. Marco, you're in charge 'til I get back.”

 

Marco acknowledged the order and the soldiers kept vigil over the forest.

 

“River, may I borrow your computer for a moment?” the Doctor asked and began transferring readings of the crack into it when she handed it to him. He walked ahead of the others while the computer worked out some calculations.

 

Jamie decided to take the opportunity to ask River about her conversation with Amy. “Who did you think was supposed to be with Amy?” he asked her.

 

“James, I know that you care about Amy very much. But she's supposed to be getting married the morning after you picked her up,” River replied.

 

“Married? Why would she do that?” Jamie asked, scrunching his nose in disgust.

 

River laughed and placed an arm around his shoulders. “Because she and Rory are a matched set, just like your mum and dad. She doesn't know it yet, but even the impossible won't separate them forever,” River answered.

 

“But, if she gets married, she might not want to come with us anymore,” Jamie said sadly.

 

“Oh, lots of room in the TARDIS,” River told him and moved to catch up with the Doctor as he paused to study the computer in his hands for a moment.

 

“What is it, dad?” Jamie asked.

 

“Er... readings from a crack in the wall,” the Doctor replied.

 

“How can a crack in the wall be the end of the universe?” River asked, curious about his answer from earlier.

 

“Don't know, but here's what I think. One day, there's going to be a very big bang. So big, every moment in history, past and future, will crack,” the Doctor answered thoughtfully.

 

“Is that possible? How?” River questioned.

 

“How can you be engaged, in a manner of speaking?” the Doctor threw back at her. He was determined to get a few answers about who River Song really was in their lives.

 

“Well,” she began with a nervous swallow and a glance toward Father Octavian. “Sucker for a man in uniform.”

 

The Bishop approached them and River's eyes opened wide in fear. “Doctor Song's in my personal custody. I released her from the Storm Cage Containment Facility four days ago and I am legally responsible for her until she's accomplished her mission and earned her pardon. Just so we understand each other,” Octavian informed them.

 

“You were in Storm Cage?” the Doctor questioned as he eyed her appraisingly. What was she doing imprisoned in one of the highest security facilities in this galaxy? 

 

He was jolted from his thoughts by the chirping of the computer in his hands. Numbers began to scroll along the bottom of the screen as the calculations completed.

 

“That can't be right,” Jamie whispered as he read it.

 

“What? What is that?” River asked.

 

“The date of the explosion, where the crack begins,” the Doctor replied and exchanged a worried look with his son.

 

“And for those of us who can't read the base code of the universe?” she prompted.

 

The Doctor pressed a button for it to translate into numerals she would understand, further proving that she wasn't his daughter or she would understand it. The numbers displayed “26 06 2010.”

 

“Amy's time,” the Doctor added.

 

“Not just Amy's time, that's the day after we picked her up! That's...” Jamie stated, getting more upset by the minute, but was stopped from continuing by River squeezing his shoulder and giving him a look that warned not to reveal Amy's secret just yet.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Rose sat with Amy and carefully ran her sonic back and forth over her injured ankle while the soldiers kept watch for Angels in the forest.

 

“The Angels are advancing, ma'am,” a soldier named Marco called to Rose.

 

“Keep your eyes on them. They can't move while you're looking at them,” Rose shouted back, hoping to get Amy feeling well enough to walk.

 

“Are you boys seeing what I'm seeing?” Cleric Phillip called to the others.

 

“The trees, yeah?” Marco asked and everyone noticed the lights in the forest starting to dim slightly.

 

“What are they doing? What's wrong with the trees?” Amy asked as she looked up at the trees worriedly.

 

“Here too, sir. They're ripping the treeborgs apart,” Pedro replied.

 

“And here. They're taking out the lights,” Marco informed them.

 

“Alright, Amy, how's that leg feeling now? Do you think you can walk again?” Rose asked her, wishing they could just run for it.

 

“I dunno. I don't think so,” Amy said as fear started to swell inside her, causing tears to form in the corners of her eyes.

 

“We're going to be alright, just hang on,” Rose told her and focussed on contacting her husband. _“The Angels are ripping the trees apart, love. And I don't think Amy's going to be able to run for it. Any solutions yet?”_

 

“ _Working on it,”_ came the abrupt reply. She could tell he was focussed on something and didn't want to distract him further. Rose had faith in her husband's ability to get them out of things in the nick of time, so the most important thing now, was to keep herself and Amy alive until he could do it.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“This is the Primary Flight Deck, but it doesn't open from here. There must be a service hatch or something,” Octavian told them.

 

“Hurry up and find it. Time's running out,” River snapped at him.

 

“What? What did you say? Time's running out, is that what you said?” the Doctor asked curiously. He always thought that was an odd turn of phrase. As a being of time, the idea of time running out was strange.

 

“Yeah. I just meant...” she began.

 

“I know what you meant. Hush,” he interrupted as his mind began to swirl with possibilities about time and the crack being the end of the universe. “But what if it could?”

 

“What if what could, dad?” Jamie asked over his shoulder as he searched for an opening onto the flight deck.

 

“Time. What if time could run out?” the Doctor mused.

 

“Found it!” the Bishop called and Jamie began to work on the hatch with his sonic while his dad continued to think about time.

 

“Cracks... cracks in time. Time running out. No, couldn't be... couldn't be. But how is a duck pond a duck pond if there aren't any ducks? And she didn't recognize the Daleks,” the Doctor mumbled to himself and waved his hands through the air ineffectually. “Ok, time can shift... time can change... time can be rewritten. Ah... oh!” he gasped as he came to some kind of conclusion.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

The Angels were getting closer to the area where the clerics were keeping watch over Amy and Rose. Just as they thought they'd have to find a way to carry Amy out of there, however, a bright light broke through the trees.

 

“The ship's not on fire, is it?” Marco asked the opinion of the others.

 

“It can't be. The compressors would have taken care of it. Marco, the Angels have gone. Where'd they go?” Pedro wondered.

 

“What do you mean they've gone?” Rose asked, getting up from her spot beside Amy to see what was happening.

 

“This side's clear too, sir,” Phillip reported.

 

“There's still movement out there, but away from us now. It's like they're running,” Marco told them.

 

“Well, I doubt they're running away from us. So, what are they running toward?” Rose questioned as she looked curiously at the white light penetrating the trees.

 

“Phillip, Crispin, need to get a closer look at that,” Marco ordered and the two soldiers immediately took off into the forest. After staring into the light for a few minutes, Marco said dazedly, “It's like, I don't know, a curtain of energy... sort of shifting. Makes you feel weird.”

 

“And you think it scared the Angels?” Amy asked from her seat. She couldn't see the source of the light from her position.

 

“What could scare those things?” Pedro wondered, knowing how impervious they were to every attack they had put forth.

 

“No, it didn't scare them. They're running towards it. Let me see better. Do you have a good angle where you are, Marco?” Rose reasoned and tried to find the best view of the light source. “Oh my god,” she whispered and decided that she needed to contact her husband.

 

“ _Love, this is getting serious. The crack has gotten much larger. The light is shining through the forest now and the Angels turned away from approaching us and are running towards it,”_ Rose thought to the Doctor.

 

“ _Oooh, that's very not good,”_ the Doctor replied. _“We're getting the hatch open to the Primary Flight Deck now. We'll see if we can find a way to get Amy here without her having to walk or be carried the whole way.”_

 

“Marco, you want me to get a closer look at that?” Pedro asked as he stared into the light.

 

“Go for it. Don't get too close,” Marco replied and Pedro immediately ran off through the trees.

 

“Hang on. What about the other two? Why not just wait until they're back?” Amy questioned the intelligence of sending anyone else out there.

 

“What other two?” Marco replied, confusion written plainly on his face.

 

“The ones you sent before,” Amy told him.

 

“I didn't send anyone before,” Marco said, shaking his head.

 

“You most certainly did! Crispin and Phillip were sent as soon as the Angels turned tail and now you've send Pedro to the same fate,” Rose chastised him angrily.

 

“I'm sorry ma'am, but there never was a Crispin or a Phillip on this mission, I promise you,” Marco responded respectfully.

 

“Yes, there were and you've forgotten them for some reason. Why would that be?” Rose assured him, knowing that something like this was a sign that things were getting progressively worse.

 

“ _New problem, Doctor. First two, and now a third soldier have marched off into the light and the remaining soldier seems to have forgotten that they ever existed,”_ Rose communicated silently with her husband.

 

“ _Hmm... oooh. Working on it... time can be unwritten! It's been happening all around us and we haven't even noticed. The Daleks, the CyberKing, nobody remembers!”_ the Doctor continued his musings as he talked with Rose telepathically.

 

“ _Are you saying that these cracks are erasing history?”_ Rose asked him fearfully.

 

“ _I'm not sure yet, but keep everyone away from that light. We'll get you out of there soon,”_ he replied.

 

As Rose was distracted by her communications, Amy continued to try and reason with Marco. “Honestly, before you sent Pedro, you sent Crispin and Phillip, and now you can't even remember them. Something happened. I don't know what, and you don't even remember,” Amy cried as she got more and more worried.

 

“Pedro?” Marco questioned.

 

“Yeah, before you sent Pedro,” Amy insisted.

 

“Who's Pedro?” he asked, clearly becoming more and more confused.

 

“Ok, let's not worry about that right now,” Rose interrupted, relatively sure that there wasn't anything they could do for the missing soldiers, and wanting to make sure that the remaining people stayed alive. “No one else is going anywhere near that light. I need your help, Marco. We're going to take it slowly for now, since the Angels seem to be preoccupied, but we're going to start carrying Amy towards the others,” she ordered as she took charge of the situation.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“Look out!” Jamie shouted as he stared at the Angel that suddenly appeared near Father Octavian.

 

River had already climbed through the hatch and onto the Flight Deck. The Doctor and Octavian backed their way towards the hatch, keeping their eyes fixed on the Angel.

 

“There'll be more coming now. They've probably realized that they can't absorb the energy from the crack,” the Doctor told them as he urged the others through before him. He rushed through the hatch himself and sealed it shut.

 

“There's a teleport. If I can get it to work, we can beam the others here,” River shouted from the far corner.

 

“Right. Jamie, see if you can help her with that. We'll have three people to teleport back here as soon as possible,” the Doctor replied as he checked the status of the ship on the computers around him.

 

“ _The Angels will be coming back your way again, love. Please be careful. We're trying to get the teleport here working. There's an Angel right outside our door,”_ the Doctor thought to Rose worriedly.

 

“ _Ok, so best not to even bother trying to get to that door then? Just watch around us for Angels until you can zap us out of here, yeah?”_ Rose responded, her panic rising.

 

“ _I'd love to say yes, but there's Time Energy spilling out of that crack, and you have to stay ahead of it. The Angels could kill you, but the Time Energy could erase your very existence. You need to keep moving, my love,”_ her husband begged.

 

There was a loud banging sound that echoed through the ship.

 

“What's that?” River asked.

 

“The Angels, running from the fire. They came here to feed on the Time Energy, now it's going to feed on them,” the Doctor replied.

 

“What's the Time Energy going to do, dad? You said they can't absorb it,” Jamie questioned.

 

“Er... keep eating,” the Doctor replied.

 

“How do we stop it?” River asked plainly as they kept working on the transporter.

 

“Feed it,” the Doctor replied quietly.

 

“Feed it what?” River wondered.

 

“A big, complicated space time event should shut it up for a while,” the Doctor responded and wrung his hands nervously. He wondered what his plan would do to Rose and Jamie. They would both likely cease to exist as well. There had to be another way.

 

“Like what, for instance?” River questioned, knowing how dangerous his plans often were.

 

“Like me, for instance... but there has to be another way. If I ceased to exist, Rose would have died in a shop basement and Jamie would never have been born, and who knows how many other horrible events might have come to pass,” the Doctor rambled as he paced the room worriedly.

 

“What about the Angels, dad? Are they complicated space time events as well?” Jamie prompted.

 

“Well, yes... the crack is already eating them, but ...” the Doctor considered this when he was pulled from his musings by the sound of the transporter whirring to life.

 

Amy Pond suddenly appeared and tumbled to the ground. She was abruptly carried away from the machine as Jamie activated it once again to bring his mother into the room as well. When Rose ran to her son's side for a hug, Jamie pressed the button one last time, and Marco appeared on the platform. Everyone sighed with relief and the Doctor leapt over the computer console to hug his wife fiercely.

 

An alarm sounded abruptly and everyone turned to face the barrier separating them from the forest filled with Angels as it slowly began to rise.

 

“The Angels are draining the last of the ship's power, which means the shield is releasing,” the Doctor explained and held tightly to Rose's waist as he moved closer to the confrontation.

 

An army of Angels stood before them. The ones furthest away moved forward slowly any time the group looked away from them. The ones in front were stuck for the moment in the sight lines of both the other Angels and the Doctor's group.

 

“Angel Bob, I presume,” the Doctor addressed the Angel that held one of the communicators.

 

“The Time Field is coming. It will destroy our reality,” Bob announced.

 

“Yeah, and look at you all, running away. What can I do for you?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“There is a rupture in time. The Angels calculate that if you throw yourself into it, it will close, and they will be saved,” Bob replied.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Could do, could do that. But why?” the Doctor said dismissively, knowing that he had already removed that option from consideration.

 

“Your friends and family will also be saved,” Bob reasoned.

 

“I could see how you'd think that, but no, not really. You see, my past existence is rather important to their current existence,” the Doctor half-heartedly explained.

 

“I've travelled in time. I'm a complicated space time event too. Throw me in,” River suggested, desperately searching for another solution.

 

“Oh, be serious. Compared to me, these Angels are more complicated than you, and it would take every one of them to amount to me, so... get a grip,” the Doctor said pointedly.

 

“What? ... Oh, brilliant!” Jamie exclaimed as he instructed Amy and Octavian to hold tight to some grab bars along the wall.

 

“Oh, you genius.” River gasped and grabbed a hold of another bar near her tightly.

 

“Sir, the Angels need you to sacrifice yourself now,” Bob told him in his eerily calm voice.

 

“Thing is, Bob, the Angels are draining all the power from this ship. Every last bit of it. And you know what? I think they've forgotten where they're standing. I think they've forgotten the gravity of the situation,” the Doctor replied, which earned a giggle from Rose beside him. “Or to put it another way, Angels, night-night,” he added as he and Rose both grabbed the bar closest to them and held to each other tightly as well.

 

The gravity on the ship failed and all of the Angels were sucked into the crack as they felt themselves pulled off of the floor. For Rose and the Doctor, this was far too familiar a feeling. Their hold on each other was desperate through the ordeal as the events of Canary Wharf haunted them both. They clung desperately to their anchors until the power flashed back to life and the artificial gravity reasserted itself.

 

Finding her feet back on the floor, Amy asked, “What just happened?”

 

“The Angels were erased from time, which means that they were never here to drain the power and now everything is fine,” the Doctor explained.

 

“What Angels? Is this wreckage secure now, sir?” Octavian questioned, clearly confused by what had just happened.

 

“Perfectly safe for retrieval, Bishop,” the Doctor responded with a smile and began to shut down the engines from the computer station. The radiation would then dissipate enough to gain access to the ship from the outside rather than the tunnels.

 

Back on the beach, near the TARDIS, they were surrounded by all of the clerics that had been killed in the events. Crispin, Phillip and Pedro were still missing, but no one seemed to even remember that they were ever there. Nor did any of them remember the Angels.

 

“Why don't they remember any of it, Doctor?” Amy asked curiously.

 

“The Angels all fell into the Time Field. They never existed,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Then why do I remember it at all? Why do we remember it?” she pressed further.

 

“You're a time traveller now, Amy. It changes the way you see the universe, forever. Good, isn't it? It's a growing club,” he added with a chuckle and wrapped an arm over her shoulder.

 

“And the crack... that the Time Energy was coming from, is that gone too?” she asked worriedly.

 

“Yeah, for now. But the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there, somewhere in time,” the Doctor told her quietly.

 

River stood nearby, with Father Octavian speaking on his communicator. She was in handcuffs and seemed to want to bid them farewell.

 

“What now?” the Doctor asked her, knowing that she was the one with more knowledge than himself at this point.

 

“The prison ship's in orbit. They'll beam me up any second. I might have done enough to earn a pardon this time. We'll see,” River replied with a smile.

 

“I know that you're family, River. I've not worked out just how yet, but Rose and I have been in prison plenty of times. Storm Cage is a piece of cake, so why are you actually serving your sentence?” the Doctor asked.

 

River laughed at that and told him, “It's a long story, Doctor. It can't be told, it has to be lived. No sneak previews. You'll see me again quite soon, when the Pandorica opens.”

 

“The Pandorica? Ha!” the Doctor laughed as well.

 

“Isn't that a fairy tale?” Jamie asked confusedly.

 

“Aren't we all, James? I'll see you there,” she added with a wink at Jamie. He blushed slightly and shuffled closer to his parents.

 

“Bye, River,” Rose called to her.

 

“Until next time, Rose. You too, Amy. Oh, I think that's my ride,” she announced as the communicator in her pocket started beeping.

 

“Can we trust you, River Song?” the Doctor asked her before she disappeared.

 

“If you like. But where's the fun in that?” she replied with a smirk and vanished in a whirl of wind and sand along with all of the soldiers.

 

The Doctor and Rose walked back to the TARDIS with their hands clasped between them. Their thoughts were swirling with ideas about who River could be to them as well as worrying about these cracks that were erasing people's memories of huge events. If Amy didn't remember the Daleks' invasion, did the people involved in it still remember? Of course, they were time travellers too, so maybe they would.

 

When everyone was back inside the TARDIS, the small family began the process of moving the ship into the Vortex. Amy sat on the bench nearby and nervously fidgeted.

 

“I want to go home,” Amy told them quietly.

 

Jamie gasped and ran to hug his friend. The Doctor looked at her sadly over the console.

 

“No, not like that. I just, I just need to show you all something. You said you've been running, well, I'm running too,” Amy admitted.

 


	15. Time for an Intervention

Chapter Fifteen – Time for an Intervention

 

 

The TARDIS landed inside Amy's bedroom, five minutes after they had picked her up to begin with. It was rather cramped with the time ship in the space, but they still found room to sit with her as they all stared at the long white dress that hung in her wardrobe.

 

“Oh my god! Amy!” Rose gasped as she stared at the gown in shock.

 

Amy picked up a small, red box from her nightstand and opened it to reveal a diamond ring.

 

“I'm getting married in the morning,” Amy announced.

 

“But...” Jamie began, but couldn't seem to get any other words out of his mouth. He sat next to Amy on her bed and clung to her arm, hiding the tears that threatened to fall by not meeting anyone's eyes.

 

“Why did you leave it here?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“Why did I leave my engagement ring behind when I ran away the night before my wedding?” Amy stated incredulously, thinking that it was rather obvious to her why she left it.

 

“Why are you running from it, Amy? Do you not want to get married?” Rose asked her.

 

“I... I don't know. I mean... all those adventures. I nearly died so many times. It made me think, that there's just so much more out there in life than getting married and having kids and a job and I just...” Amy tried to explain.

 

“Amy, listen to me. Do you love this man? I mean really love him?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“Well, yeah. Of course I do,” she responded.

 

“Then don't waste a moment. If there's one thing that life has taught me in recent years, it's that you never know when the people you cherish might disappear completely and you're left with nothing but regrets,” the Doctor insisted.

 

“I just needed time to stop and think and everything was just coming at me so fast,” Amy replied.

 

“And of course, with a time machine, tomorrow morning can be put off indefinitely,” Rose realized.

 

“Tomorrow morning?” the Doctor suddenly asked, deep in thought about the date they had discovered related to the explosion causing the crack. He looked at Jamie, who finally met his gaze and gave him a sad nod of agreement.

 

“Yeah, what about it?” Amy confirmed.

 

“It's you... it's all about you. Amy Pond, I don't know why, I have no idea, but quite possibly the single most important thing in the history of the universe is that we get you and your bloke sorted out right now,” the Doctor told her and urged all of them back into the TARDIS.

 

“Dad, what does Amy's wedding have to do with the cracks? It's like they're following her or something all the way from when she was a little girl,” Jamie whispered to his father.

 

“I don't know yet, but we'll figure it out,” the Doctor whispered back. “Where is your fiancé now, Amy?” he asked more loudly.

 

“Rory is at his stag party,” she answered and gave them the address of the bar.

 

They set the coordinates for the bar at the exact moment that they had first picked Amy up from her backyard in her nightgown. Before they landed, however, the Doctor felt that he needed to give Amy that last bit of advice about not wasting any time.

 

Taking Rose's hand, he told her, “Amy, shortly after Rose and I were married, I lost her. She was pulled into a parallel universe where I could not reach her. I thought I'd never see my wife again, I didn't even know that she was pregnant at the time.”

 

Rose squeezed his hand supportively and with a telepathic brush of affection, he continued, “I spent years without her, Amy. All that time, regretting the time that we wasted denying our love for each other. It wasn't quite as long for her and Jamie as it was for me, but when I got them back, I swore that I would never waste a single moment again. Not everyone is lucky enough to get a second chance the way we did.”

 

“We're not saying that something bad is going to happen to you and Rory, sweetheart. It's just, if you really love him, then what are you waiting for?” Rose reassured her.

 

“Of course I love him. I just don't see why we have to be married and settle down and stuff. Why does it have to be the house, and the kids, and the picket fence?” Amy questioned.

 

“Have you asked him that question?” Rose wondered.

 

“Let's do that. Let's ask Rory why it's important to him to have those things,” the Doctor said suddenly and ran to the console to flip the switches necessary to get them to their destination. “Ok, kids, you stay in the TARDIS and we'll go get Rory,” he instructed once they had landed and pulled Rose behind him as he ran for the door.

 

In the hallway they had entered, there was a large, pink cake with a barely dressed woman standing beside it. The Doctor looked at the cake excitedly, not even noticing the stripper that would soon be inside it.

 

“No, Doctor,” Rose told him and their roles were suddenly reversed as she was tugging him behind her by the arm.

 

“But what an entrance!” he argued.

 

“No,” she repeated pointedly.

 

They waited by the doorway for a moment, while visually searching the room for the man they had met during the Atraxi incident.

 

They found him on his mobile and overheard him speaking to Amy's voicemail, “Hey! It's me. Hello, how are you? The reason for this call is because I haven't told you for seven hours that I love you, which is a scandal, and even if we weren't getting married tomorrow, I'd ask you to marry me anyway. Yes, I would, because you are smashing! So, umm... I'll just go... and I'll see you tomorrow.”

 

Rose giggled at his drunken nervous babble and they approached Rory as he hung up the phone. He was wearing a red shirt that had a picture of himself and Amy together inside a heart on the front and the words 'Rory's Stag' on the back.

 

“Rory! So glad we found you, we need to talk about your fiancée,” the Doctor exclaimed happily and slapped the man on the back.

 

“Amy?! What's the matter? Is she ok?” he asked in a sudden panic, knowing the kind of danger that happened the last time he had seen these two people.

 

“She's perfectly fine, Rory. Don't worry, she's just got a bit of cold feet, yeah? We're here to help, honest,” Rose reassured him as she took his arm and they led the man out of the bar. As they were leaving, music began to play and they passed the large cake being rolled into the party. Rory would apparently miss the stripper that had been hired, but that was the least of their worries for the moment.

 

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Jamie went to the area below the console to work on their magnificent ship, while Rose spoke with the couple above them.

 

“So, Rory, Amy decided to come with us on a few trips. We didn't know that she was getting married in the morning or we would have waited and asked you along too. But Amy told us that she was nervous about the wedding, so we thought, maybe it would be good... Since we have a time machine and you won't have to actually put off the plans that have already been made... If we brought you two on a nice, romantic trip together,” Rose explained nervously.

 

“What, like a date?” Amy asked incredulously.

 

“Anywhere you want! Any time you want! One condition, it has to be amazing. The Moulin Rouge in 1890, the first Olympic Games... Think of it as a wedding present, because it's either this or tokens,” the Doctor called up from beneath them, looking through the glass floor wearing dark goggles over his eyes.

 

Rory was just standing and taking everything in rather awkwardly. He seemed to have sobered up from the party rather quickly once they had pulled him from the bar, and he seemed to be upset about Amy having second thoughts.

 

“You ran away, the night before our wedding?” Rory asked, obviously hurt.

 

“We were only gone for five minutes, Rory,” Amy told him.

 

“Amy, yes, it was only five minutes here. And our next trip _with_ Rory can take up another five minutes here really, but you need to be honest. You need to talk to Rory about _why_ you felt the need to stretch that five minutes into several days of running around the universe,” Rose told her in a soft, encouraging tone.

 

“I love you, stupid face. I just don't see why we have to settle down. Why do we have to do the married with a house and kids and jobs and stuff? We could go off and have adventures and fun and not be tied down,” Amy told Rory as she took his hands in hers encouragingly.

 

Rory looked a bit shellshocked by the notion that his fiancée was questioning the purpose of marriage the night before their wedding. Rose decided that maybe he just needed a little push to get into an adventure with Amy and they could find the common ground that drew them together in the first place.

 

“So, all of time and space, where do you two want to go? Backwards, forwards, sideways?” Rose asked them with a smirk.

 

The Doctor and Jamie came up the stairs to join them at the controls.

 

“How about somewhere romantic?” the Doctor asked as he typed some coordinates onto the keyboard.

 

Jamie was pouting a bit, but decided that as long as Amy stayed on board, it didn't really matter if Rory was there too. He couldn't be too bad if Amy loved him that much.

 

 


	16. Vampires of Venice: Part One

Chapter Sixteen – The Vampires of Venice: Part One

 

They exited the TARDIS to see a street filled with people. They seemed to be in the middle of a marketplace, but next to them was a wide canal filled with gondolas.

 

“Venice! Venezia! La Serenissima. Impossible city. Preposterous city. Founded by refugees running from Attila the Hun. It was just a collection of little wooden huts in the middle of the marsh, but became one of the most powerful cities in the world. Constantly being invaded, constantly flooding, constantly just beautiful. Ah, you've got to love Venice. So many people did. Byron, Napoleon, Casanova. Oooo, that reminds me,” he interrupted his lecturing ramble to check the gold watch on his wrist. “1580... that's alright. Casanova doesn't get born for a hundred and forty five years. Don't want to run into him. I owe him a chicken. Not to mention I'm not letting him anywhere near you, my love,” he added as he grabbed Rose around the waist.

 

Rose giggled at his antics and admired their beautiful surroundings.

 

“You owe Casanova a chicken?” Rory asked him.

 

“Long story. We had a bet,” he explained.

 

“Would he even recognize you now, dad?” Jamie asked him, curiously.

 

They were suddenly stopped by an official looking man in black and carrying a large book.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Papers, if you please. Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection,” the man demanded of them.

 

The Doctor quickly displayed his psychic paper to the inspector and casually replied, “There you go, fellow. All to your satisfaction, I think you'll find.”

 

“I am so sorry, Count. I didn't realize...” he stuttered in shocked reply.

 

“No worries. You were just doing your job. Sorry, what exactly is your job?” the Doctor asked him suspiciously.

 

“Checking for aliens,” he told them, earning a worried gasp from Amy and Rory. “Visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them.”

 

“Oh, that's nice. See where you bring me? The plague,” Amy complained.

 

“Don't worry, Viscountess. No, we're under quarantine here. No one comes in, no one goes out, and all because of the grace and wisdom of our patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri,” the inspector assured her.

 

“But, I thought the plague died out years before this?” Jamie questioned his father.

 

“Not out there. No, Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes. Streets are piled high with bodies, she said,” the inspector informed them.

 

“Did she now?” the Doctor mused quietly as the inspector moved on to chase after another unfamiliar face.

 

They continued strolling down the street and Rose wondered, “Why would she be trying to isolate the city like that?”

 

“Why indeed... this city makes its fortune on trade. Why keep people out?” the Doctor added as his mind whirled with possibilities.

 

As the group explored the city, they heard a few people whispering and pointing across the water to a group of ladies with their faces covered and parasols held over their heads. The citizens called them the Calvierri girls and the Doctor deduced that they must have something to do with this mysterious Signora.

 

They watched as a man searched through the girls, calling for Isabella. When he finally seemed to have found the one he was looking for, the girl didn't seem to know him at all however. One of the men accompanying the ladies seemed to threaten him before leaving, but they couldn't hear what was said.

 

Rose and the Doctor ran to find a way across to speak to the man without the others noticing they had left.

 

“What was that about?” Amy asked and turned to where the Doctor had been standing, only to find him missing. “I hate it when he does that.”

 

“I'm sure they just went to investigate. They're probably going to talk to that man,” Jamie told her pointing to the dark skinned man that had been searching for Isabella. “Should we go follow the ladies and see what they're up to?”

 

“Sounds like a plan,” Amy replied with a smile and took Jamie's offered arm. Rory followed behind them, pouting and unsure what they were supposed to be doing.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

The Doctor and Rose caught up with the man in a quiet alley and the Doctor asked him curiously, “Who are those girls?”

 

The man stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face them. “I thought everyone knew about the Calvierri school,” he responded suspiciously.

 

“My first day here. It's ok, parents do all sorts of things to get their children into good schools. They move house, they change religion... So why are you trying to get her out?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“Something happens in there. Something magical, something evil. My own daughter didn't recognize me. And the girl who pushed me away, her face... like an animal,” he told them, his face a mixture of fear and anger.

 

“Makes me glad we decided to school Jamie ourselves,” Rose interjected.

 

“As if anyone but me could teach him anything,” the Doctor snarked. “But, I think it's time I met this Signora Calvierri. Do you think you could provide us with a small distraction?” he asked the man, putting an arm around his shoulders.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“I think we may have lost them,” Jamie said despondently as they seemed to get lost in the small paths running between the buildings.

 

“Don't worry about it, Jamie. This is fun exploring, yeah?” Amy told him and patted his arm.

 

“And what have you been doing?” Rory interrupted, trying to regain his fiancée's attention.

 

“Well... we've been running, and fighting. I've been scared. More scared than I thought was...” Amy explained, but was cut off quickly.

 

“Did you miss me?” Rory asked her hurriedly, as if afraid of her answer. The hurt in his eyes was painful for Amy and she looked away.

 

“I knew I'd be coming back,” she told him, dodging the actual answer to his question.

 

“She helped us save a whole starship full of people, and kept the Daleks from destroying the Earth, and fought against alien statues that wanted to take over the universe,” Jamie informed him proudly.

 

“Yeah, not really what I'm concerned about right now, Jamie. I'm more interested in why you would want to leave, Amy?” Rory questioned as he took both of her hands and looked longingly into her eyes.

 

“Oh, let's not do this, Rory. Not now,” she pleaded with him, then tugged him down the walkway, swinging their clasped hands between them.

 

Jamie followed them. He wanted Amy to be happy, he just couldn't figure out how she could be happy with Rory. She was so vibrant and exciting and Rory was so... well, dull. For now, he decided to just observe. River had told him that they were a match that was almost as strong as his parents. He tried looking at their timelines, expecting them to be shrouded from him since Amy was such a close friend. Frighteningly, he saw them almost as clearly as a casual acquaintance or rarely seen relative. He couldn't see details of their lives, but undoubtedly, Amy and Rory's timelines were tightly wrapped together. His hearts broke a little with the realization, that he and Amy wouldn't be close in the near future at all.

 

They were all broken from their thoughts by the sound of a horrifying scream. The trio ran to find what was wrong. What they found was a woman sprawled on the ground with a richly dressed man hovering over her. When he looked up at them, they saw small puncture wounds on her neck that were bleeding. The man hissed at them, revealing sharp, curved teeth that were covered in blood. He ran past them, covering his face with the short cape over his shoulders.

 

Rory quickly moved to check on the young woman on the ground. “She'll be ok. Where are you going? Amy, come back!” he called after her as she and Jamie chased the perpetrator.

 

They only followed him around a couple of turns before they almost fell headlong into the water as a doorway opened suddenly into another canal.

 

“Lost him,” Jamie cursed and stomped back towards Rory. He needed to scan the injured girl before she left, to make sure there weren't any lasting effects from the attack, and his sonic was more thorough than Rory's nursing abilities without any equipment.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

While their new friend Guido was distracting the guards by trying to get into the front gates of the school, Rose and the Doctor slipped around to the side gate and sonicked it open to slip inside. Descending a dark staircase, they found themselves in a small chamber with three wooden doors and a large, gilded mirror.

 

Rose looked at the doors curiously while the Doctor adjusted his bow tie in the mirror saying, “Hello, handsome.”

 

“Umm... we have company, love,” Rose whispered nervously as she tapped her husband's arm.

 

He hadn't noticed anything behind him in the mirror, but turned quickly and was surprised to see five girls in long, white gowns. In unison, they asked, “Who are you?”

 

Looking back and forth between the ladies and the mirror, he showed Rose how they had no reflection at all. Both of them gaped incredulously.

 

“How are you doing that? I am loving it! You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls, and he was shorter. Will be shorter... I'm rambling,” the Doctor babbled.

 

“Yeah, you tend to do that, love,” Rose added.

 

“I'll ask you again, Signor. Who are you?” the girls once again droned in unison.

 

“Why don't you check this out?” he proclaimed confidently as he held a leather wallet towards them. It wasn't his usual psychic paper. It contained a card with a photo of his first incarnation's face. The girls stared as if not really seeing it for a moment before he turned it to look for himself. Rose peeked over his shoulder to see it and giggled.

 

“Library card. Of course, it's with... he's... I need a spare,” he mumbled as he put the wallet away. “Pale, creepy girls who don't like sunlight and can't be seen in... Ha! Rose, are you thinking what I'm thinking?” the Doctor crowed as he took his wife's hand tightly. It was exciting but very dangerous and they ought to be ready to run. 

 

“I know,” she sang with glee and held his hand with an equally firm grip. “But why would they need to shut down the city?” Rose wondered idly.

 

The girls interrupted, saying, “Leave now, both of you, or we shall call for the steward, if you are lucky.” They smiled, then, as they looked hungrily at the Doctor and seemed to ignore Rose entirely.

 

The Doctor pulled Rose behind him slightly as he backed away from the ladies. They sneered as their teeth suddenly appeared to be long, sharp, and curved frighteningly.

 

“Tell me the whole plan!” he demanded and the girls hissed in response as they advanced further.

 

“Yeah, one day that will work, love,” Rose whispered in his ear. She started tugging him worriedly up the stairs and away from the creepy girls.

 

“Listen, we would love to stay here... this whole thing... I'm thrilled... Oh, this is Christmas!” he told them and decided that Rose was quite right about retreating for now as they ran back up the stairs hand-in-hand.

 

Back outside of the school, they quickly saw Amy and Jamie running towards them. As they met in the middle, Amy called, “Doctor!”

 

With excited smiles, the Doctor and Rose told them, “We just met some vampires!”

 

At the same time, Amy and Jamie announced, “We just saw a vampire!”

 

The four of them bounced and giggled excitedly at the prospect of adventure. They all grinned madly as they caught their breath. Rory ran up to meet them worriedly and informed them all, “We think we just saw a vampire.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Amy and Jamie were just telling us,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Yeah, the Doctor and Rose actually went to their house,” Amy told Rory with a smile.

 

“Oh... right... well...” Rory muttered, not sure why the four of them looked so pleased at the prospect of facing vampires.

 

“Ok, so, first we need to get back in there somehow,” the Doctor announced.

 

“What?” Rory asked, his eyes unbelievably large.

 

“How do we do that?” Jamie questioned, wanting to help with the plan.

 

“Back in where?” Rory stammered, still not believing that they were all planning to walk willingly into danger.

 

“Come and meet our new friend, Guido,” the Doctor said as he put an arm over the shoulders of Amy and Jamie and walked them back towards the house of the man who was helping them.

 

Rose looked back at Rory. He watched them walk away and gaped like a fish for a moment. She went back to his side and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Rory. This is where it gets fun,” she told him and skipped to follow the others happily.

 

At Guido's house, they all sat around the table. Their new friend placed a map of the city in the middle and showed them the difficulty.

 

“As you saw, there's no clear way in. The House of Calvierri is like a fortress. But there's a tunnel underneath it, with a ladder and shaft that leads up into the house. I tried to get in once myself, but I hit a trapdoor,” Guido informed them.

 

“You need someone on the inside,” Amy mused.

 

“No,” the Doctor snapped.

 

“You don't even know what I was going to say,” Amy argued with furrowed brows.

 

“You were gonna suggest that we pretend that you're an applicant to the school to get you inside, and tonight you come down and open the trapdoor to let the rest of us in,” Rose said as she stood in front of the ginger girl with her arms crossed over her chest.

 

“Oh... so you did know what I was going to say,” Amy admitted.

 

“You forget that I've been doing this longer than you. Been there, done that,” Rose replied with a wink.

 

“Are you insane?!” Rory cried from across the room, where he was sitting atop a barrel.

 

“We don't have another option,” she argued.

 

“He said no, Amy. Listen to him,” Rory insisted, for once agreeing with the Doctor.

 

“There is another option,” Guido stated as he pointed towards the pile of barrels where Rory was seated. Rory paled as he thought they were suggesting sending him inside the school, but the Doctor caught what Guido was referring to and moved to sniff the barrels.

 

“I work at the Arsenale. We build the warships for the navy,” Guido explained.

 

“Gunpowder,” the Doctor announced as he identified the substance inside. 

 

Rose scoffed and said, “Most people I know, just nick stationary from work. How'd you sneak that out?”

 

“Look, I have a thing about guns and huge quantities of explosives,” the Doctor argued against this option.

 

“What do you suggest, then? We wait until they turn her into an animal?” Guido responded angrily as he turned away and smacked his hand against the wall frustratedly.

 

“I'll be there, three, four hours tops,” Amy observed.

 

“No. No, no, no... I don't want you in there alone. This is how things go, yes, but we need to go together,” the Doctor reasoned, worried about how easily they could overpower Amy on her own.

 

“Why don't I go with her then? They want girls, yeah? If we stick together, we should be alright and I can contact you telepathically, if anything goes wrong,” Rose suggested in an effort to make the plan safer, but still feasible.

 

“What? Don't listen to them,” Rory argued.

 

“Alright, Rose, I know I can count on you to take care of Amy. So, the two of you stick together and open the door for us as soon as you can tonight,” the Doctor agreed reluctantly.

 

“This whole thing is mental. They're vampires, for God's sake,” Rory cried, trying to talk some sense into the group of people in front of him.

 

“We hope,” the Doctor added.

 

“What else could they be, dad?” Jamie questioned, curiously tilting his head.

 

“Not sure, makes you wonder what could be so bad it doesn't actually mind us thinking it's a vampire,” the Doctor replied and squeezed his wife's hand.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

With Rose and Amy both dressed properly for the era, they went to the front gates together. Using the psychic paper, Rose gave references to get them inside.

 

“Signora, my cousin and I would very much like to attend your school. My father passed away recently and we have no means of supporting ourselves,” Rose explained to the expensively garbed woman lounging in an ornate throne.

 

“Have we met?” the young man that was standing next to the throne asked as he approached Amy, staring at her face.

 

“Umm, no. No, I don't think so... Signor,” Amy stuttered in response.

 

He circled around her like a vulture eyeing its next meal and Rose pulled their linked arms tightly together in support.

 

“We don't get out much. I doubt if you would have seen either of us before,” Rose lied.

 

As the young man circled behind Rose, he sniffed loudly. “You've borne a child,” he sneered at her.

 

“What?” Rose gasped as her eyes went wide. “I'm not... I never...” Rose began but was quickly cut off from speaking further.

 

“Carlo, explain yourself. I'll not have harlots in my school,” Signora Calvierri ordered the Steward standing to the side.

 

“Signora, they have references from His Majesty the King of Sweden,” he replied.

 

“What? Let me see,” she said, disbelievingly reaching for their references.

 

Rose handed her the psychic paper, hoping it would be enough to get them through. The woman eyed Rose suspiciously as she handed it back and seemed to sniff the air around her as well. Rose wondered what species they were that might smell motherhood on her. She still looked nineteen by human standards, though she was actually close to thirty.

 

“Well, now I see what got my Steward so excited. What say you, Francesco? Do you like them?” the woman asked, evaluating both women.

 

“This one, I do, Mother. Not the other,” he said as he eyed Amy hungrily and sneered at Rose.

 

“Then we would be delighted to accept your cousin. I'm afraid you, however, do not meet our exacting standards. Say goodbye to your cousin,” Signora Calvierri announced suddenly.

 

Rose began to panic, this wasn't part of the plan, but she didn't know if they should abandon it completely or risk that Amy would be alright on her own. Amy nodded to Rose and reassuringly squeezed her hands.

 

“I'll see you really soon, ok? I'll be fine,” Amy told her and allowed herself to be taken into the school as Rose was led back out the front gate despondently.

 


	17. Vampires of Venice: Part Two

Chapter Seventeen – The Vampires of Venice: Part Two

 

Guido guided the group in a gondola down the tunnels leading into the school. The Doctor held a torch to light their way and Rory fidgeted nervously beside him.

 

“She'll be fine,” the Doctor assured him.

 

“You can promise me that, can you?” Rory questioned, terrified for his fiancée.

 

“Rory, I'm sorry that they wouldn't take me in with her. I did try, but somehow they could smell that I was a mother and refused me,” Rose told Rory as his eyes darted fearfully around the dark tunnel.

 

“Amy can take care of herself,” Jamie added, confident in her abilities.

 

“We're here,” Guido told them, breaking up the discussion as he parked the gondola and they all climbed out.

 

Guido waited with the boat as the Doctor, Rose, Jamie and Rory made their way through the narrow hallways and multiple doors leading up to the bolted trap door.

 

“Why did she run? Did she tell you why?” Rory asked, his insecurity apparent to all of them.

 

“She wants to have adventures. She doesn't want everything to be boring,” Jamie responded.

 

“Boring? Did she say that I was boring?” he gasped in fear.

 

“No! No, Rory, that's not what she said,” Rose reassured him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “She just said that she wasn't sure she was ready for the whole house and kids and responsibility type thing.”

 

“But... but...” Rory stuttered as his mind failed to come up with an appropriate response.

 

“Why do you want to tie her down? Amy deserves to fly and have adventures, not be stuck with a boring job and stuff,” Jamie accused, still terrified by what he saw in his friend's timelines.

 

“I... I didn't... wouldn't...” Rory stumbled over his thoughts.

 

“Calm down, Rory. Jamie, that isn't nice. Rory loves Amy, he isn't trying to tie her down. That's just a fear that she has, that doesn't make it true,” Rose told them.

 

“Exactly. That's why we brought the two of you here, so you can work out...” the Doctor began, but trailed off when a strong gust of wind blew out their torch, leaving them in complete darkness. “Can we go and see the vampires now, please?” he asked, getting back to the matter at hand.

 

Following the dim light from the metal grate above them, they climbed up to the trapdoor. The Doctor pushed it open and peeked his head out to see if it was safe. Not immediately seeing anyone, Jamie and Rose were lifted out first. They reached back to help Rory and the Doctor out after them.

 

“Amy? Amy? Where's Amy?” Jamie whispered into the surrounding darkness.

 

“I can't see a thing,” Rose complained.

 

“Just as well I brought this then,” Rory announced as he proudly turned on a pen light from his pocket.

 

The Doctor reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a huge light wand. “Ultraviolet. Portable sunlight. Perfect for dealing with vampires,” the Doctor informed them.

 

Rory looked back and forth between the two light sources rather dejectedly. “Yours is bigger than mine,” he admitted.

 

“Really, Rory? Did you have to go there? Let's not start a contest here, boys,” Rose admonished them as the two men glared at each other.

 

Not seeing anyone around the courtyard where they were, everyone began to search the surrounding areas. They found, however, that it was too dark to split up and probably safer to stay together anyway.

 

“If we cancel now, we lose the deposit on the village hall, the salsa band... oh...” Rory despaired aloud.

 

“Calm down, Rory. No one said anything about cancelling,” Rose reassured him and rubbed his shoulder supportively.

 

The Doctor and Jamie found a large, wooden chest and opened it. Inside were several bodies, all blackened and shrivelled. Jamie scanned them with his sonic.

 

“They've had all the moisture taken out of them,” Jamie told them and placed his sonic back into his jeans pocket.

 

“That's what vampires do, right? They drink your blood and replace it with their own?” Rory questioned, wondering if this was somehow not what they were expecting.

 

“Yeah, except these people haven't just had their blood taken, but all the water in their entire bodies,” the Doctor replied, continually looking around to make sure they weren't suddenly ambushed.

 

“Why did they die? Why aren't they like the girls in the school?” Rory asked, his worry for Amy increasing every minute she wasn't by his side.

 

“Maybe not everyone survives the process,” the Doctor theorized.

 

“Or maybe they were too uncooperative?” Rose added, wincing at the thought since Amy would definitely fall into that category.

 

“We won't know for sure until we get some answers from the vampires,” Jamie told them and crossed his arms over his chest impatiently.

 

Rory's composure suddenly snapped and he paced angrily. “You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks, it's that you make them want to impress you. You make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around,” he accused the Doctor.

 

“Rory! How can you....” Rose began but found they had bigger things to worry about.

 

Half a dozen of the creepy girls in white appeared around them and asked in unison, “Who are you?”

 

The group huddled together behind the Doctor as he waved the ultraviolet light at the vampires. They hissed angrily and moved to attack.

 

“We should run. Run!” the Doctor shouted and Rose took his hand to guide him while he kept the light swinging toward their attackers.

 

Running down the hallway, they suddenly skidded to a halt as they faced Signora Calvierri, her son and her Steward.

 

“Cab for Amy Pond?” the Doctor squeaked as he defensively held the light in front of him.

 

“This rescue plan, not exactly watertight, is it?” Calvierri sneered.

 

The Doctor swung the light threateningly at the approaching girls behind them again as Amy and Isabella ran into the room.

 

“Rory!” Amy cried.

 

“Amy!” he sighed in relief and hugged her tightly.

 

“Quickly, through here,” Isabella told them and led them away from the Vampires and Calvierri.

 

They ran down a dark staircase and back toward the trapdoor.

 

“They're not vampires,” Amy called back over her shoulder.

 

“What are they then?” Rose shouted back as they kept running.

 

“I saw them... I saw her. They're aliens,” Amy replied, holding tight to Rory's hand. She wanted to get him out of there to safety.

 

“Classic,” the Doctor laughed as he tried to sonic the door shut behind them in an attempt to slow down their pursuers.

 

“That's good news? What is wrong with you people?” Rory asked incredulously.

 

“Come on, Rory. Move,” the Doctor said as he pushed him ahead. The Doctor stayed at the rear to hold back the creatures with his light wand.

 

“Keep moving, everyone. We've got to get out of here,” Rose demanded.

 

Jamie opened the final door to see Guido waiting in the boat for them. The sun was shining and they could hear church bells ringing in the distance. Guido smiled at the sight of everyone coming through the door, especially when Isabella ushered people through the door saying, “Quickly, quickly. Get out. Quick! Quick!”

 

When the sun struck her face, however, she recoiled in pain and shielded her face with her arm. While Rose and the Doctor tried to urge her along with them, she ducked backward to the darkness of the tunnel and found herself pulled back inside by the aliens. They shut the heavy door and when the Doctor pounded on it in an effort to rescue Isabella again, the metal hardware was suddenly electrified, shocking him and he stumbled to lie on the stairs.

 

“Doctor! Oh my love, are you alright?” Rose cried as she knelt beside him and took his face in her hands. She could feel his thoughts swirling as he fought his way back to consciousness.

 

Rory had leapt into action, his nurse training taking over. After a quick evaluation, he announced, “He's breathing. He should be alright.”

 

It was only a few minutes before the Doctor opened his eyes. Rose hugged him tightly while he got his bearings and worked out what to do next.

 

“Guido, take them back to your house for now. Jamie, I want you to do a full scan on Amy. Make sure there are no lasting effects on her from whatever they did. Rose, you're with me, love,” the Doctor confidently ordered everyone.

 

Roughly pulling Rose behind him, they made their way through to Calvierri's throne room. The Doctor sat himself lazily in the golden throne and pulled Rose down to sit in his lap while they waited for the lady of the house to arrive. She looked surprised at seeing them there and slowed her pace slightly when she entered the room.

 

“Long way from Saturnyne, aren't you, Sister of the Water?” the Doctor asked, now that he had worked out what kind of aliens they were.

 

She looked uncertainly between Rose and the Doctor for a moment before she seemed to understand a little bit. “No... let me guess. The owner of the psychic paper? Then I take it you're a refugee, like me?” she deduced.

 

“I'll make you a deal. An answer for an answer. You're using a perception filter. It doesn't change your features, but manipulates the brainwaves of the person looking at you. But seeing one of you for the first time in, say, a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to fill the gap with, so leaves it blank, hence no reflection,” he explained confidently.

 

“Neat trick,” Rose added.

 

“Your question?” Calvierri prompted.

 

“Why can we see your big teeth?” the Doctor asked with a chuckle.

 

She smiled at the easy answer, “Self preservation overrides the mirage. The subconscious perceives the threat and tries to alert the conscious brain.”

 

“Where's Isabella?” the Doctor demanded to know.

 

“My turn,” she chastised. “Where are you from?”

 

“Gallifrey,” he said simply and squeezed Rose's hand as he was forced to think of his home world. Rose sent him feelings of love and support as she leaned her head against his shoulder.

 

“You should be in a museum... or in a mausoleum,” Calvierri commented when she realized he was a Time Lord.

 

“Think I'd rather keep him with me, ta,” Rose countered with a glare toward the Saturnyne.

 

“Why are you here?” the Doctor questioned, trying to change the subject away from the death of his species.

 

“We ran from the Silence. Why are you here?” she responded evasively.

 

“Wedding present. The Silence?” he pressed for more information.

 

She paced for a moment before she decided on how to answer this question. “There were cracks. Some were tiny. Some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people, and through others we saw Silence and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours, and the crack snapped shut behind us. Saturnyne was lost,” she explained as she continued to pace back and forth in front of them nervously.

 

“So Earth is to become Saturnyne Mark Two?” the Doctor concluded.

 

“And you can help me. We can build a new society here, as others have. What do you say?” she suggested excitedly, not realizing that he was unhappy with the idea.

 

“Well, there is a teensy little issue with the fact that Earth happens to be my wife's home world. So I can't say that I'm very keen on the plan really. Tell me though, where's Isabella?” he responded.

 

“Isabella?” she asked, genuinely confused.

 

“The girl who saved our friend,” he clarified.

 

“Oh, deserters must be executed. Any general will tell you that. But what about a partnership? We needn't take over the whole planet, we could co-exist with the natives,” she suggested, grasping at straws. She seemed to realize that he wouldn't allow a complete takeover of the planet, but perhaps she could still find a compromise.

 

“And just how many humans need to be sacrificed along the way? How many have already been sacrificed?” Rose replied indignantly as she stood up to face the woman.

 

“You see, can't have my lovely wife upset. We've already got one nearly extinct race to worry about,” he added and wove his fingers with Rose's as he took her hand. Their bracelets clinked together and they could feel each other's turbulent pain at the death of Isabella, whom they had promised to rescue for Guido.

 

“Carlo!” she called and her Steward entered the room to escort them out. “I will bend the heavens to save my race. You cannot stop me.”

 

“That's where you're wrong. This ends today. I will tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone,” he told her threateningly.

 

“Take your hands off me, Carlo,” Rose sneered as he tried to pull her by the arm towards the door. The Doctor pushed himself between Carlo and his wife as he glared at the man, the Oncoming Storm blazing in his ancient eyes.

 

“Do you know why I'm so sure of this? Why there is no way I would ever even consider that you might try to co-exist with the humans on Earth? You didn't know Isabella's name,” the Doctor told her as he led Rose out of the door and back towards Guido's house.

 

When they entered the small space, the Doctor immediately checked Jamie's sonic to see what he had found from scanning Amy.

 

“She seems to be perfectly fine, dad,” Jamie told him confidently.

 

“Yeah. Perfectly fine. Nice work,” he said distractedly as he handed the sonic back and ruffled his son's hair. Groaning in frustration, the Doctor paced the room and tapped his fingers against his head. “I need to think. Come on, brain. Think, think, think....”

 

“If they're fish people, it explains why they hate the sun,” Amy suggested, trying to help.

 

“Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush,” the Doctor demanded and put a hand over Amy's mouth.

 

“It's the school thing I don't understand,” Rory said, hoping to understand what was going on a little more.

 

“Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush,” the Doctor repeated and put his other hand over Rory's mouth.

 

“There's plenty that _you_ don't understand, Rory,” Jamie snarked.

 

“Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush,” the Doctor told Jamie and looked pointedly between Jamie's hand and his mouth. With a roll of his eyes, Jamie placed his own hand over his mouth.

 

“I say, we take the fight to them,” Guido suggested, not quite catching on to the overall theme in the room.

 

“Ah, ah, ah,” the Doctor chastised Guido.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

Rory rolled his eyes then and reached next to him to put his hand over Guido's mouth. Rose sat off to the side to watch the amusing interplay and stifled her giggles so as not to distract her husband's ever-important thinking.

 

Finally having the silence needed for him to begin his ramble that would work out the problem, the Doctor looked blindly into the distance. “Ah... Her planet dies, so they flee through a crack in space and time and end up here. Then she closes off the city and, one by one, starts changing the people into creatures like her to start a new gene pool. Got it, but then what? They come from the sea. They can't survive forever on land, so what's she going to do? Unless she's going to do something to the environment to make the city habitable. She said, I shall bend the heavens to save my race.... bend the heavens....  _bend the heavens!_ She's going to sink Venice,” he concluded as his eyes came back into focus on the room. He dropped his hands from the mouths of Amy and Rory, and the others took that as a sign that his forced silence was over.

 

“She's going to sink Venice?” Guido questioned, disbelievingly.

 

“And repopulate it with the girls. She can't have enough yet,” Rose mused.

 

“You can't repopulate somewhere with just women. You need... blokes,” Rory interjected.

 

“She's got blokes!” Amy cried in sudden realization.

 

“Where?” the Doctor urged her.

 

“In the canal. She said to me there are ten thousand husbands waiting in the water,” Amy explained.

 

“In the water? Maybe only the male children survived the journey here? So, they're swimming around in the water, waiting for their mum to make them compatible mates?” Jamie suggested.

 

“Ugh... I mean, obviously I'm not opposed to interspecies marriages, but Rose was certainly willing and happy with the idea. And Calvierri can't even be bothered to learn the girls' names, let alone worry about whether they like the boys or not,” the Doctor babbled in disgust.

 

There was suddenly a loud thump on the ceiling, followed by the sounds of people running above them.

 

“The people upstairs are very noisy,” the Doctor complained.

 

“There aren't any people upstairs,” Guido informed him.

 

“Of course!” Rose growled.

 

“Do you know, I knew you were going to say that. Rose, love, you knew he was going to say that too, didn't you? You're brilliant like that,” the Doctor rambled nervously.

 

“Is it the vampires?” Rory whispered fearfully.

 

“They're not really vampires, Rory. They're Saturnynes. Like... big fish from space,” Jamie explained.

 

The Doctor pulled out his large UV light wand just as the creepy girls started breaking in through the windows. They seemed to almost be floating outside.

 

“Aren't we on the second floor?” Rory wondered as he moved to Amy's side and took her hand.

 

Rose wrapped her arms around Jamie's shoulders while the Doctor moved towards the window where the girls were crowding to get in. He waved the light toward them threateningly and used his sonic to reveal their true appearance. The large, fish aliens hissed at him angrily.

 

“What's happened to them?” Guido questioned in fear.

 

“There's nothing left of them. They've been fully converted. Blimey, fish from space have never been so.... buxom,” the Doctor told them and received a whack on the back of his head. “Ow! What was that for?”

 

“You wanna join the ten thousand boys waiting in the water so that you can get one of those buxom fish? Or maybe just spend the night on the couch?” Rose threatened, but pulled him back away from the aliens.

 

“Oh, they aren't nearly as lovely as you, dearest. I was just commenting on the rather unusual traits of these particular fish... Ok, MOVE!” the Doctor bellowed and began pushing everyone towards the stairs to the outside as the Saturnynes forced their way inside the house.

 

Everyone had made it out of the house except Guido, when he suddenly shouted, “Stay away from the door, Doctor!” He slammed and bolted the door shut.

 

Rose and the Doctor pounded on the door uselessly as they called for their friend. “What is he doing?” Rose cried.

 

“No... he wouldn't. Would he?” the Doctor wondered and met Rose's gaze as they both realized how much gun powder he had stashed in his kitchen.

 

“Oh my god,” Rose gasped.

 

Hand-in-hand, the pair ran away from the house and towards Amy, Rory and Jamie. They narrowly avoided getting caught in the blast from the house and the force of it behind them, pushed them both to land hard on the ground.

 

They all walked back towards the house sadly grieving the loss of their new friend. The sky began to fill with dark clouds and lightening. Around them, the people of the city began to panic and pray.

 

“Rosanna's initiating the final phase,” the Doctor announced.

 

“We need to stop her. Come on,” Amy said and began to walk toward the school.

 

“No, no, no. Get back to the TARDIS, all of you,” the Doctor ordered.

 

“You can't stop her on your own,” Amy argued.

 

“And he won't. The three of you, make your way back to the TARDIS. Jamie, when you get there, see if you can run some scans or something to find out what's going on. We're going to try and stop it from the source, but if you can find another way, do it,” Rose told them as she took her husband's arm and pulled him back toward the school.

 

“You know, you're sexy when you get all bossy like that,” the Doctor told her as he stumbled to keep up with his wife. He knew he had to start kissing up to her at this point or he really would be stuck on the couch for a while.

 

They made their way into the throne room once again and the Doctor scanned the throne with his sonic to find the main controls. He was fairly certain that this would be where the controls were hidden. Rose checked over the throne herself when she noted his interest in it and found that the cushioned panel on the back opened to reveal glowing, blue circuitry.

 

“You're too late,” Rosanna Calvierri announced from behind them. “Such determination, just to save one city. Hard to believe it's the same man that let an entire race turn to cinders and ash. Now you can watch as my people take their new kingdom.”

 

“As if it ever stops with just one city,” Rose sneered at her.

 

“The girls have gone, Rosanna,” the Doctor told her.

 

She looked at him in shock for a moment before declaring, “You're lying.”

 

“Shouldn't we be dead? Hmm? You did send them to kill us. Now, please, help me. There are two hundred thousand people in this city,” he pleaded for her to stop this plan.

 

“So save them,” she replied angrily and she stormed from the throne room.

 

“We've got work to do, love,” Rose called him back to work on the circuits they had revealed.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Jamie, Rory and Amy were making their way through the alleyways of Venice towards the TARDIS. The place felt deserted as everyone gathered together to stare panic-stricken at the sky. After such a long time without seeing anyone, it came as quite a shock when they found themselves face to face with Rosanna Calvierri's son, Francesco. In a sudden panic, Rory grabbed two nearby candlesticks and held them up like a cross in front of him.

 

“Amy... run,” Rory said nervously.

 

Francesco sneered at him with his sharp, alien teeth and smacked the candlesticks aside. Jamie pulled Amy back away from the threat while he searched his pockets frantically for anything that might help defend his friend. Rory backed away in a different direction, hoping to have the alien follow him rather than Amy, but Francesco's eyes were fixed on the young ginger.

 

“This way, you freak! No! This way, you big, stupid, great Sponge Bob! The only thing I've seen uglier than you is... your mum,” Rory shouted at him.

 

At that insult, Jamie and Amy saw his sneer suddenly drop into a frown. Francesco turned to face Rory then to defend his mother's honour. “Did you just say something about mummy?” he questioned the terrified Rory.

 

Rory picked up a nearby broom and tried to feebly attack with it in a sword-like manner. Unfortunately, Francesco had a real sword and knew how to use it. In the close quarters, the alien did have some trouble getting enough room to attack properly as Rory ducked around hanging laundry and piles of crates.

 

“Come on, Amy, I've got an idea,” Jamie told her as he took her hand and pulled her to another staircase. “We need to find some sunlight,” he whispered as he watched Rory try to defend himself against the Saturnyne that was highly motivated to kill him.

 

Amy pulled a small mirror from her pocket and ran up a nearby staircase to where she could see a bright patch of sunlight shining on the wall.

 

“This way, Rory!” Jamie called.

 

Rory came running towards them, but tripped and fell on the ground at the base of the stairs. Francesco's perception filter sparked and went offline to reveal his true form, just as he leapt through the air and landed to hover over Rory where he lay.

 

“Hey, mummy's boy!” Amy shouted from above and held her mirror in the beam of sunlight to reflect it down on the alien. Almost immediately, Francesco began to sizzle slightly before exploding in a burst of black ashes. Rory coughed awkwardly, trying not to breathe in the remains of Francesco.

 

“Nice job, Amy!” Jamie called to her.

 

“That was lucky. Why did you make the sign of the cross, you numpty?” Amy scolded Rory.

 

He began to climb the staircase to where she was as he defended himself, “Oh. Oh, right, I'm being reviewed now, am I?”

 

Amy surprised both of them then, when she grabbed the front of Rory's shirt and snogged him thoroughly. Rory didn't seem to know what to do with the situation and his arms flailed uselessly to the sides. When she finally released him from the kiss, Rory looked rather dazed.

 

“Mmm. Now we go help the Doctor,” Amy announced.

 

“Righty-o,” Rory replied obediently.

 

“But mum told us to get to the TARDIS and scan things from there. I might be able to do something with the computers there, Amy. Come on,” Jamie told them and marched off towards his home.

 

Amy looked undecidedly between where she intended to go and Jamie's back as he stormed away.

 

“He does have Rose to help him, Amy,” Rory pointed out reasonably.

 

“Oh, alright,” she conceded and they followed Jamie back to the ship.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

The Doctor and Rose stood on the balcony outside the throne room as the storm outside raged. The clouds looked like they were boiling in the sky, rain poured and lighting flashed while the people below were screaming and running everywhere without knowing where to go. They dashed back into the throne room as the Doctor worked out a plan.

 

“Ok, so we need to shut this thing down, but she's locked the program,” he began and they were both suddenly thrown to the floor by a huge tremor.

 

“Was that an earthquake, love?” Rose asked as they helped each other back to their feet.

 

“Yeah, manipulate the elements, it can trigger earthquakes. But I'm slightly more worried about the tidal waves caused by the earthquake at this point. So, to shut down the program, I need to to tear out every single wire and circuit this thing as got. You've got your sonic, but if that doesn't help, hit it with a stick. Anything to get this to shut down and reroute control to the secondary hub, which I'm guessing will also be the generator,” he told her with a quick kiss. He dashed off then to follow the cables from the back of the throne.

 

Rose got to work ripping the machinery apart and all of the lights extinguished within a few minutes. She ran to see where her husband had gone, but looking up the bell tower staircase, she couldn't see him anywhere. Rose ran back outside on the balcony and looked up the side of the tower to see him climbing the side of the bell tower towards the lightning rod at the top. She screamed reflexively when his foot slipped, but he kept hold of the cables leading to the top and kept going.

 

The Doctor opened the large, brass sphere at the top of the tower to reveal a mass of wires and spinning gears. He examined it quickly, but was frustrated by the cold rain and wind that was pelting him as he worked. Finally finding a simple switch, he flipped it and everything stopped. He sighed in relief as the clouds cleared and the sun began to shine again.

 

When he started looking for the best way to climb back down again, he heard the sound of his TARDIS materializing right beside him. Hovering in the air, just a few feet away, the door creaked open to reveal Amy and Rory reaching out to pull him inside. Jamie was at the controls and shouted, “Need a lift, dad?”

 

“Brilliant bit of flying there, Jamie! Let's go pick up your mum,” the Doctor said as he ran towards the console. He slipped a bit on the glass floor as he was dripping water everywhere, but they managed to park the ship on the balcony right beside Rose.

 

Everyone ran out of the TARDIS then and the Doctor scooped Rose up into a spinning hug as he kissed her soundly. The others looked over the side of the balcony as the people below cheered and applauded.

 

“I'll be right back. Why don't you all find yourselves some dry clothes in the TARDIS?” the Doctor said and with an encouraging nod to his wife, he used his sonic to trace the life signs of Rosanna.

 

He found her standing in just her white chemise at the edge of the canal.

 

“Rosanna!” he called, hoping to stop her from doing anything rash.

 

“One city to save an entire species. Was that so much to ask?” she wailed.

 

“You know it never would have stopped there. You have to move on. You mourn, but you live. I know, Rosanna. I did it,” the Doctor told her as he edged his way closer.

 

“Tell me, Doctor, can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race? Remember us. Dream of us,” she said softly and threw herself into the water.

 

“No! No!” he called as he dashed over to the space she had vacated and looked despairingly into the water. The children swimming in the canal did not recognize her with her perception filter in place and she was devoured instantly.

 

The Doctor sat back on the ground by the water and mourned the loss of another race. Was this also a result of his actions in the Time War or was this something else entirely? Rose was right that they never would have stopped with just Venice. A species like the Saturnynes would have taken over the entire ecosystem and there would be nothing left of the human race anywhere on the planet.

 

Regretfully, he stood up and made his way back to the TARDIS. When he entered, he found everyone sitting near the console on the benches and sipping cups of tea. Rose handed him a cup, prepared just the way he liked it now. His last incarnation used to dump as much sugar as he could into it, but he found that he now preferred it with just a little sugar and lemon. “Thank you, love,” he mumbled as he took an appreciative sip.

 

“So, what next, you two? Do we take you back in time to get dressed for the ceremony?” Rose asked.

 

Amy hesitated to say anything and Rory took that to mean that she still wasn't ready.

 

“It's fine. Drop me back where you found me. I'll just say you've...” he told them disappointedly.

 

“Stay. With us. Please. Just for a bit. I want you to stay,” Amy interrupted him. She wasn't ready to get married, but she also didn't want to call it off. Amy and Rory both looked at Rose and the Doctor to see if this arrangement would be alright.

 

“It's fine with us. Perfect in fact,” Rose told them reassuringly.

 

“Yeah, absolutely,” the Doctor agreed. “Let's set ourselves into the Vortex and I'm going to get myself changed into some dry clothes before we decide where to go next. Take a break. Show Rory around a bit.”

 

Amy took Rory's arm and walked him up the staircase to show him their room, the kitchen, and library. Rose followed the Doctor to their room so they could indulge in a hot shower and some dry clothes.

 

Jamie sat in the console room as he thought about everything that was happening. He was losing Amy, he could feel it. He just didn't know what he was supposed to do next. Tag along with his parents forever? Could he ever make his way out from under the cloud of just being the son of the Doctor and Rose? He pushed those dark thoughts aside and decided to just enjoy the moments they had for now.

 


	18. Jamie's Choice: Part One

Chapter Eighteen – Jamie's Choice: Part One

 

The TARDIS materialized in the garden of a quaint little house and when the doors creaked open, the Doctor, Rose, and a fifteen year old Jamie, walked out.

 

“Rory!” the Doctor greeted their friend, who looked as though he had been gardening and was sporting a rather silly looking ponytail in his hair.

 

“Doctor, Rose, Jamie,” he acknowledged each of them.

 

“I've crushed your flowers,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“Oh, Amy will kill you,” Rory told him earnestly.

 

“Seriously? Elizabeth two didn't mind,” Rose replied.

 

Jamie leaned against the side of the TARDIS, sulking as any teenager is expected to.

 

“Where is Amy, anyway?” the Doctor asked.

 

“She'll need a bit longer,” Rory informed them as he looked back toward the house.

 

When Amy finally emerged, she was very heavily pregnant. She waddled over to greet them.

 

“Oh, way-hey! You've swallowed a planet!” the Doctor announced, opening his arms for a hug.

 

“I'm pregnant,” she replied indignantly.

 

“You're huge!” he gasped.

 

“Yes, Doctor. She's pregnant. Sorry, he's being rude again, Amy. He didn't see me while I was pregnant, so he's a little clueless about the whole thing,” Rose told her and hugged her friends as well.

 

“Oh, look at you both. Five years later and you haven't changed a bit, apart from age and size,” the Doctor said. He wasn't really used to going back after years apart. The only other times he had done that were with the Brigadier and Sarah Jane.

 

“Looks like it's been a little more than five years for you. How old are you now, Jamie?” Amy called over to her friend, who was still leaning against the TARDIS with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

“Fifteen,” he grunted and watched some nearby birds.

 

Rose rolled her eyes at her son's behaviour. He was the one that wanted to visit in the first place and now he had to act cool. “Why don't we all go for a walk?” she suggested, taking the Doctor's arm.

 

“Good idea,” Amy agreed and the two couples headed toward the main street, with Jamie following behind them.

 

“Ah, Leadworth. Vibrant as ever,” the Doctor sighed, wondering how anyone could be happy in such a boring place.

 

“It's Upper Leadworth, actually. We've gone slightly upmarket,” Rory announced proudly.

 

“It's all a lot nicer than where I grew up,” Rose told them as she admired the historic and well-kept homes in the area.

 

“Where was that then?” Amy asked her.

 

“Powell Estates in London,” Rose replied and squeezed her husband's hand. It was such a long time ago now, but her roots would always be from that rough neighbourhood that shaped her upbringing.

 

“Really?” Amy responded in surprise.

 

“Where is everyone?” the Doctor interrupted.

 

“This is busy. Ok, it's quiet, but it's really restful and healthy. Loads of people here live well into their nineties,” Amy told him.

 

Jamie watched all of this with disdain. This was exactly what Amy had said she DIDN'T want. This was why she ran away with them. How could she possibly be happy here?

 

“Well, don't let that get you down,” the Doctor told them and Rose bumped his shoulder playfully.

 

“It's not getting me down,” Amy replied.

 

“Well, I wanted to see how you were. You know me, I don't just abandon people when they leave the TARDIS. Can't get rid of me so easily,” the Doctor announced.

 

“Hmmm... this was Rose's idea, wasn't it?” Amy inquired.

 

“Actually,” Rose began, but saw the panicked look in Jamie's eyes and changed her mind. “Yes... yes, it was my idea to come and see the two of you.”

 

They found a bench on the side of the road and sat together for a moment. The time travellers almost never stayed still for long and got twitchy with the situation rather quickly.

 

“So, what do you do around here to stave off the... you know...” the Doctor began.

 

“Boredom?” Amy completed the thought.

 

“Well... umm, yeah, sorry... I'm with him,” Rose added.

 

“We relax,” Rory told them happily.

 

Jamie scoffed and rolled his eyes. This was exactly the kind of life that he had hoped they could rescue Amy from being trapped in.

 

“Relax,” the Doctor said with a nod.

 

“We live. We listen to the birds,” Rory went on.

 

“Yeah, see? Birds. Those are nice,” Amy agreed with her husband.

 

“We didn't get time to listen to birdsong back in the TARDIS days, did we?” Rory added.

 

The sound of the birds singing became quite loud, suddenly and everyone started to feel drowsy.

 

“Oh blimey, my head's a bit...” the Doctor began.

 

“Mine too. What's...?” Rose added and leaned heavily on her husband's shoulder.

 

Jamie had been standing nearby, and when the others fell asleep against each other, he fell to the ground beside the bench.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“...Going on?” Rose said and looked at her husband in surprise. They were sitting on the floor at the base of the console on the TARDIS as Jamie, Rory and Amy entered the room. “What just happened?”

 

Rory's hair was just as short as it had been before and Jamie was only eight years old. But that's the way it had always been, right?

 

“Oh, you're ok! I just had a terrible nightmare about you two. That was scary. Don't ask, you don't want to know. You're safe now,” the Doctor rambled as he moved to hug Amy and Rory.

 

“Oh, ok,” Amy said confusedly as she returned the hug.

 

“But...” Jamie began as he looked between his father and mother suspiciously.

 

“Something's wrong, Doctor,” Rose told him when she noticed Jamie's look and realized that they may have been sharing a dream.

 

“That's what counts,” the Doctor continued his train of thought, not noticing Jamie and Rose's responses. “Blimey. Never dropped off like that before. Well, I am getting on a bit, you see. Don't let the cool gear fool you. Now, what's wrong with the console? Red flashing lights. I bet they mean something.”

 

“Er, Doctor, I also had a kind of dream thing,” Rory admitted.

 

“Yeah, so did I,” Amy told them.

 

“I think, maybe we all did. Perhaps we ought to compare notes, yeah?” Rose suggested.

 

“Mine wasn't a nightmare, though, just... er... we were married,” Rory began.

 

“Yeah. In a little village,” Amy agreed.

 

“A sweet little village, and you were pregnant,” Rory added with a smile.

 

“Yes, I was huge! I was a boat,” Amy cried.

 

“So, you had the same dream, then? Exactly the same dream?” Rory wondered.

 

“Are you calling me a boat?” Amy said, glaring at Rory.

 

“And all of you were visiting, but Jamie was older,” Rory continued, ignoring the frightening look his fiancée was giving him.

 

“Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that we all shared the same dream,” Rose interjected worriedly.

 

“But you said it was a nightmare,” Rory argued, looking at the Doctor.

 

“Yeah, well... it was a bit similar... in some aspects,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“Which aspects?” Rory questioned.

 

“How could we all share the same dream?” Jamie wondered.

 

“You said it was a nightmare!” Rory accused angrily.

 

“Did I say nightmare? No, more of a really... good... mare,” the Doctor acquiesced. Rose tried to stifle her giggles at his backtracking. “Look, it doesn't matter. We all had some kind of psychic episode. We probably jumped a time track or something. Forget it. We're back to reality now.”

 

“Are you sure, dad?” Jamie asked as they started to hear birdsong again. “Why can I hear birds inside the TARDIS?”

 

“Yeah, the same birds. The same ones we heard in the...” Rory began.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

“...Dream. Oh! Sorry. Nodded off. Stupid. God, I must be overdoing it. I was dreaming we were back on the TARDIS,” Rory rambled as he picked his head up from Amy's shoulder.

 

“Why am I on the ground?” Jamie questioned and stood up to brush the dirt off of his jeans from where he fell into a nearby flowerbed.

 

“What's going on, Doctor?” Rose asked.

 

The Doctor stood abruptly from the bench and began to march back towards the TARDIS. Everyone hurried to follow him and considered what was happening.

 

“You had the same dream, didn't you?” Rory deduced from their reactions.

 

“Listen to me, all of you. Trust nothing. From now on, trust nothing you see, hear or feel,” the Doctor insisted and grasped Rose's hand tightly.

 

“But we're awake now,” Rory argued.

 

“Yeah. You thought you were awake on the TARDIS, too,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Could I really still be eight years old though?” Jamie questioned.

 

“But we're home,” Amy protested.

 

“Yeah, you're home. You're also dreaming. Trouble is, which is which? Are we flashing forwards or backwards? Hold on tight. This is going to be a tricky one,” the Doctor informed everyone.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Everyone suddenly sat up on the glass floor of the TARDIS and looked at each other worriedly.

 

“Oh, this is bad. I don't like this,” the Doctor moaned and stood up to kick the console. He shouted angrily and grabbed his leg where he had hurt it in the process. Rose moved to rub it for him. “Never use force. You just embarrass yourself. Unless you're cross, in which case, always use force,” he told them.

 

“Shall I run and get the manual?” Amy asked him.

 

“I threw it in a supernova,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Why would you throw the manual in a supernova?” Amy wondered.

 

“Because it told me I couldn't go get Rose from another universe. Stop talking to me when I'm cross,” the Doctor huffed angrily.

 

“I told you, dad. I have a manual. The TARDIS gave me another one. But I'm pretty sure there wasn't anything in there about this kind of thing,” Jamie interjected, trying to break up the argument and get back on track toward finding a solution.

 

“Ok, but whatever's wrong with the TARDIS, is that what caused us to dream about the future?” Rory asked.

 

“What makes you think it was the future?” Rose wondered.

 

“Well, of course it was the future. We were in Leadworth,” Amy argued.

 

“Upper Leadworth,” Rory added.

 

“Yeah, and we could still be in Upper Leadworth, dreaming of this. Don't you get it?” the Doctor responded as he typed furiously into the keyboard, searching for answers.

 

“No, ok? No, this is real. I'm definitely awake now,” Amy insisted.

 

“Then how come you were so sure it was a dream while you were pregnant? This could be the dream. Just like dad said before, we can't trust anything we see or hear or feel. We need to look for the little details that might be wrong,” Jamie told them.

 

“Exactly! Examine everything,” the Doctor agreed.

 

“Ok, we're in a spaceship that's bigger on the inside than the outside,” Rory commented.

 

“And that spaceship existed in both places, so I think we can count that one out,” Rose observed and suddenly the lights in the TARDIS went out.

 

The Doctor checked all the switches on the console, trying to get it to respond in some way. “It's dead. We're in a dead time machine,” he said forlornly.

 

“Mum!” Jamie cried as he ran to her side where she lay on the floor, unconscious.

 

The Doctor gasped and dropped to his knees beside her. He quickly placed both hands at her temples and tried to see what the problem was. “She's blocked from me! That shouldn't be able to happen!” he shouted in a panic.

 

Jamie was scanning her with his sonic screwdriver and informed everyone, “She's in a coma. What's going on?”

 

They heard the birds chirping again. Rory hugged Amy tightly.

 

“This can't be real... I don't want this to be real,” the Doctor whimpered as tears fell down his face.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

When everyone opened their eyes again, they were on the ground outside a library. Children were walking past with their teacher and the clock bells were chiming in the distance. The Doctor instantly took Rose in his arms and hugged her frantically.

 

“What's going on? Everything went black there for a moment,” Rose said and her brow furrowed in confusion.

 

“You... you fell into a coma when the TARDIS lost all power. In the other dream... other place... I still don't know which one is real,” Jamie explained as best he could.

 

Rose rubbed her husband's back as he sobbed quietly into her hair. “It's alright, love. I'm here and we'll get it all figured out somehow.”

 

“This one definitely feels like the real one. It's all solid,” Amy told them confidently.

 

“It felt very solid in the TARDIS too. You can't spot a dream while you're having it,” Jamie argued.

 

The Doctor shuddered and squeezed his wife tightly once more before pushing all of his worry aside and setting about the task of fixing this. “Right. Time to solve this,” he announced. He waved his hand quickly in front of his face and seemed to concentrate on it.

 

“What are you doing?” Rory questioned curiously.

 

“Looking for motion blur, pixilation... It could be a computer simulation. I don't think so though,” the Doctor replied.

 

An old woman walking by greets Rory, “Hello, doctor.”

 

“Hi,” Rory replies with a smile.

 

“You're a doctor?” Jamie asks.

 

“Yeah, and unlike some people, I've actually passed some exams,” Rory responded confidently.

 

“What makes you think dad never passed any exams? He's over nine-hundred years old, it's not like he never had time,” Jamie defended his father.

 

“A doctor, not a nurse. Just like you've always dreamed. How interesting,” the Doctor interjected.

 

“What's interesting?” Rory asked.

 

“Your dream wife, your dream job, probably your dream baby...” the Doctor mused.

 

“You think this might be Rory's dream?” Rose questioned, following his train of thought.

 

“It's Amy's dream too. Isn't it, Amy?” Rory prompted with a look at his wife.

 

Amy paused with a slightly panicked look on her face before answering, “Yes. Course it is, yeah.”

 

“That was convincing,” Jamie mumbled.

 

“What's that?” the Doctor asked as he pointed towards a building across the way, where the elderly woman who had greeted Rory seemed to be going.

 

“Old people's home,” Amy replied and elderly people looked at them suspiciously through every window of the building.

 

“You said everyone here lives to their nineties. There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick,” the Doctor told them and pulled Rose with him as he ran toward the building.

 

Rory and Jamie followed closely, but Amy had some trouble keeping up with the group.

 

“Oh, can we not do the running thing?” Amy shouted after them.

 

Inside the care home, several of the elderly people greeted Rory eagerly. The Doctor darted around the room, looking for clues when he was suddenly recruited to try on a jumper someone was knitting, as he looked to be the same size as her grandson. Rose giggled at the sight, but kept trying to observe everything, in case there might be some hint at what was going on.

 

Jamie stood by the door and avoided interacting with the people, still unsure if he could trust anything that was happening.

 

“Slightly keen to move on. Freak psychic schism to sort out,” the Doctor told the woman who had just pulled the sweater over his head. “You're incredibly old, aren't you?” he asked her as he examined her face closely.

 

All of the residents stared at him curiously as they heard birdsong once again.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

They came to again, on the floor of the TARDIS. Rose remained unconscious and the Doctor picked her up gently and laid her on the bench nearby.

 

“Ok, I hate this, Doctor. Stop it, because this is definitely real. It's definitely this one. I keep saying that, don't I?” Amy babbled as she started pacing nervously.

 

“It's bloody cold,” Rory complained and rubbed his upper arms.

 

“The heating's off,” the Doctor responded curtly, still fussing over Rose.

 

“The heating's off?” Rory questioned indignantly.

 

“The entire ship has lost power and we are in space. What would you expect, Rory?” Jamie shouted and tried to access the TARDIS computer himself. “Everything's off. Sensors, core power, even the scanner. We can't see out, we could be anywhere. There's something overriding the controls,” Jamie informed his father.

 

Suddenly, a new person appeared on the other side of the console. He was a short, balding man, wearing a dark suit. He leaned around the time rotor to address the two Time Lords.

 

“Well, that took a while. Honestly, I'd heard such good things about this family. I expected something quicker than that,” the man sneered at them.

 

“How did you get into my TARDIS? What are you?” the Doctor demanded.

 

“What shall we call me? Well, if you two are the Time Lords, let's call me the Dream Lord,” he replied.

 

The Doctor swung his screwdriver as if to strike the Dream Lord's arm, but it passed straight through like he didn't exist.

 

“Interesting, isn't it? It's all in the name, Dream Lord.... Spooky, not quite there...” the Dream Lord responded to the Doctor's actions. He disappeared from where he was but instantly reappeared behind the Doctor as he added, “And yet, very much here.”

 

“I'll do the talking, thank you,” the Doctor commented as he turned to face the intruder. “Amy, want to take a guess at what that is?”

 

“Er... Dream Lord. He creates dreams?” Amy suggested.

 

“Dreams, delusions, cheap tricks,” the Doctor added.

 

“Ooh, interesting. What about the other Time Lord, doesn't he get a guess?” the Dream Lord asked the Doctor.

 

“Of course. Jamie always gets to share his ideas,” the Doctor countered.

 

“Really? What do you think, Jamie? Do you get your say? Isn't it always about the grown-ups? The Oncoming Storm and the Big Bad Wolf with _their_ companions. What does that make you? Just... little... Jamie,” the Dream Lord baited the young man.

 

“What's the matter with mum?” Jamie demanded of the Dream Lord.

 

“Oh, now there's a good question. What _is_ the matter with mum? The Big Bad Wolf, stuck down all of a sudden. Hmm, I wonder,” the Dream Lord taunted them. “So, here's your challenge. Two worlds. Here in the time machine, and there, in the village that time forgot. One is real, the other's fake. And just to make it more interesting, you're going to face in both worlds, a deadly danger, but only one of the dangers is real. Tweet, tweet. Time to sleep. Or are you waking up?” the Dream Lord told them as they fell asleep again to the sound of birds.

 

 


	19. Jamie's Choice: Part Two

Chapter Nineteen – Jamie's Choice: Part Two

 

 

When they awoke again, they found themselves back in the care home. The Doctor was once again wearing the unfinished jumper and Rose stumbled a bit as she stood up from her blackout. The residents were no longer in the room, having left sometime while they were unconscious, and the Dream Lord entered, looking rather smug.

 

“Who are you?” Rose asked him angrily. The Doctor ran to her side to hold her up as she regained her bearings.

 

“Oh, no one important. But I have got some news for you... If you die in the dream, you wake up in reality. Healthy recovery in no time. Ask me what happens if you die in reality,” the Dream Lord prompted.

 

“What happens?” Rory obliged him.

 

“You die, stupid. That's why it's called reality,” the Dream Lord sneered at him.

 

“Have you met the Doctor before? Do you know him? Doctor, does he?” Amy questioned worriedly, knowing that she had already met one of his enemies.

 

“Oh, of course! It's all about the _Doctor_ , isn't it? It's always about the almighty Time Lord saving the universe. No one else worth bothering about really. Never mind me, you've got some realities to sort out,” the Dream Lord told them and promptly disappeared.

 

“Ok, I don't like him,” Rory said curtly.

 

“Who is he?” Amy wondered and crossed her arms.

 

“I don't know. It's a big universe,” the Doctor replied. “How are you feeling now, love?” he asked Rose.

 

“Better. Just not used to blacking out like that. I presume you had already talked to him a bit on the TARDIS?” she responded and moved to entwine their fingers.

 

“Why is he doing this?” Amy asked.

 

“Maybe because he has no physical form. That gets you down after a while, so he's taking it out on folk like us who can touch and eat and feel,” the Doctor suggested.

 

“He seemed awfully upset by how famous you are,” Jamie added.

 

“Yeah, slight personal grudge it would seem,” the Doctor agreed.

 

“So he said something about dying in one reality or the other?” Rose questioned, hoping to get filled in on the rest of the deadly game that was being set before them.

 

“He told us there would be a deadly danger in each one and only one of them was real,” Amy explained.

 

“What does he mean, deadly danger, though? Nothing deadly has happened here. I mean, a bit of natural wastage, obviously,” Rory commented.

 

The Doctor removed the jumper and looked around the room again. He then realized that they were alone. “They've all gone. Where did they go?”

 

The Doctor ran outside then to see what was happening and the others followed him. There were children playing across the street and a teacher was urging them to go inside the nearby castle.

 

“Why would they leave?” Rory questioned.

 

“Not sure. So, come on, let's think. Details! What have we got?” the Doctor prompted.

 

“The time asleep exactly matches the time in our dream world, unlike in regular dreams,” Jamie pointed out.

 

“Yes, good,” the Doctor praised.

 

“And we're all dreaming the same dream at the same time,” Rory added.

 

“Yes, a sort of communal trance. Very rare, very complicated. I'm sure there's a dream giveaway, a tell, but my mind isn't working because this village is... so... DULL!! I'm slowing down, like you two have,” the Doctor growled frustratedly. Rose squeezed his hand in support.

 

“Ooo! Ow! Really, ow! It's coming!” Amy shouted as she clutched her belly in pain. Rose moved to her side to help support her through the contraction.

 

“Ok, you're a doctor, help her,” the Doctor said to Rory nervously.

 

“You're a doctor!” Rory rebutted.

 

“It's ok, we're doctors. Rose, you've done this before. What do we do?” the Doctor asked in fear.

 

Rory and the Doctor stared at Amy, absolutely petrified.

 

“Ok, it's not coming,” Amy told them, dropping the act.

 

“What?” the Doctor gasped.

 

“This is my life now and it just turned you white as a sheet, so don't you call it dull again, ever. Ok?” Amy chastised him.

 

“Sorry,” he apologized.

 

“Yeah, that's great and all, but we do have more important things to worry about at the moment,” Rose reminded everyone. “And since I'm only getting half of the conversations going on, I'd like to be a part of this as much as possible while I can.”

 

“There is that part of it too. Why are you in a coma on the TARDIS?” the Doctor contemplated.

 

“It happened when the TARDIS lost power. Like at the exact same moment,” Jamie pointed out.

 

“You're right. And we still don't know much about your apparent transformation, but it may have been triggered by your time as the Bad Wolf. At that time, you were connected with the TARDIS. I wonder...” the Doctor rambled thoughtfully. 

 

“Doctor, where is she going?” Rose asked as she observed the elderly woman who had put the sweater on him earlier, following the children.

 

“I don't know. Not sure about you, but I wouldn't hire Mrs. Poggit as a babysitter. What's she doing? What does she want?” the Doctor wondered about the suspicious woman.

 

The birds started tweeting again and Amy cursed, “Oh, no. Here we go.”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Back on the TARDIS, the darkness had turned even colder than before. Amy shivered and rubbed her arms as she asked, “It's really cold. Have you got any warm clothing?”

 

“What does it matter if we're cold? I've got figure out what's the matter with Rose AND what that old woman is up to,” the Doctor snapped at her and immediately regretted his behaviour. “Sorry, sorry. There should be some stuff down there. Jamie, could you take them down to have a look?”

 

Jamie nodded and took them down the stairs open a large chest on the lower level. It was filled with blankets.

 

“I want the other life. You know, where we're happy and settled and about to have a baby,” Rory told Amy, teasingly but clearly longing for it to be true.

 

“But don't you wonder, if that life is real, then why would we give up all this? Why would anyone?” Amy asked him as she looked around, still in awe of the ship even when it was dark and cold.

 

“Because we're going to freeze to death?” Rory scoffed.

 

“We'll fix it. We always fix it,” Jamie chastised him as he pulled several blankets out and passed one to each of them.

 

“Ok. How about because we're going to get married?” Rory suggested.

 

“We can still get married some day,” Amy countered.

 

“You don't want to anymore. I thought you'd chosen me, instead of all this?” Rory rambled, his panic setting in again.

 

“You are always so insecure,” Amy scolded and smacked his arm.

 

“You ran off the night before our wedding!” he exclaimed.

 

“We're in a time machine. It can be the night before our wedding for as long as we want,” Amy defended herself.

 

“We have to grow up eventually,” Rory told her.

 

“Says who,” she mumbled as she walked past him, back towards the Doctor.

 

Jamie followed her with a couple more blankets. He wondered to himself if that's what growing up had to be about. Were you not grown up if you didn't have responsibilities and tied yourself down to a boring life? His parents weren't boring. Yes, they had tied themselves down to less danger while he was younger, but they were doing the things that they used to do again now. He wondered briefly if they felt tied down because of him. He knew that his birth wasn't planned, but he also knew that they loved him very much. Would they be happier if they didn't have to worry about him?

 

The Doctor went under the console to pull out various pieces of what seemed to be junk. Using some string, a hand-cranked egg beater, a corkscrew and several other items, he cobbled together a small generator. He dashed back up to the console and saw Jamie tucking a warm blanket around Rose. He sent him his thanks telepathically and prompted him to help attach his gizmo to the monitor.

 

“Ah, Rory, could you wind this, please?” the Doctor asked as he thrust the device into Rory's hands.

 

“I was promised amazing worlds. Instead I get duff central heating and a weird, kitcheny wind-up device,” Rory complained, but wound the beater anyway.

 

“It's a generator. Wind faster,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Why is the Dream Lord picking on you? Why us?” Rory asked as he tried to wind the contraption faster.

 

The Doctor ignored his questions for now as the monitor finally sprang to life. Mainly because he didn't know the answers really.

 

“Oh my god,” Jamie gasped in a manner so reminiscent of his mother that the Doctor felt his hearts clench. 

 

“Where are we?” Amy asked them.

 

“We're in trouble,” the Doctor replied ominously.

 

“What is that?” Rory wondered as he looked at the glowing white orb on the screen.

 

“A star. A cold star,” the Doctor responded and ran to the doors to look outside. A blindingly bright, white light shone in as he explained further, “That's why we're freezing. It's not a heating malfunction. We're drifting towards a cold sun. There's our deadly danger for this version of reality.”

 

“So this must be the dream. There's no such thing as a cold star. Stars burn,” Amy reasoned.

 

“So does this one. It's just burning cold,” the Doctor answered as he shut the doors and moved back to Rose's side.

 

“Is that possible?” Rory questioned.

 

“I can't know everything. Why does everybody expect me to...” the Doctor trailed off as he checked on his wife. “She's freezing! Even more than us. Jamie, we've got to do something,” the Doctor cried in a sudden panic.

 

Jamie pulled out his sonic and scanned his mother. “Her heart is still beating, but it's slowing down. It's like she's going into some sort of stasis or something,” Jamie pondered.

 

“Ok, so this cold sun thing, this is something you haven't seen before. So does that mean this is the dream?” Rory asked the Doctor, trying to bring his attention back to saving everyone's lives.

 

“I don't know, but there it is, and I'd say we've got about fourteen minutes until we crash into it. But that's not a problem,” the Doctor told them.

 

“Because you know how to get us out of this?” Rory wondered, showing an unusual amount of confidence in the Doctor.

 

“Because we'll have frozen to death by then,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“That's unusually defeatist of you, dad,” Jamie chastised. His mother wasn't here to give him his needed kick in the backside, so he would have to fill the role.

 

“You're right, Jamie. I'm sorry, don't get sucked into it. This might just be the battle that we have to lose,” the Doctor told them as he pulled himself back together.

 

“I'm sorry, dad. I'm not as good as mum at helping you figure out the answers,” Jamie mumbled as he held his mother's frozen fingers in his own.

 

“Don't be ridiculous, Jamie. You're brilliant, you know that,” the Doctor told him reassuringly.

 

The Dream Lord suddenly appeared behind them and said, “Oh, you don't have to give empty platitudes, Doctor. We all know that it has to be you and your precious Wolf that save the day. There's no room for anyone else to bask in the glory of victory.”

 

“What are you talking about? There are always brilliant people helping me. I only take the best,” the Doctor argued with the mysterious man.

 

“Always needing help, but never sharing the praises?” the Dream Lord said with a raised eyebrow. The birds started singing again and he gave an evil grin as he told them, “Don't spend too long there, or you'll catch your death here!”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

When they became aware of their surroundings again, they were already running up the stairs towards where they children and the creepy looking Mrs. Poggit were headed. The wooden staircase led them up to another grassy area that was now empty of people.

 

“Where have the children gone?” the Doctor wondered aloud.

 

“Don't know. Playtime's probably over,” Rory told him.

 

There were a dozen or so piles of dust surrounded by small bags, toys and water bottles. The Doctor and Jamie ran between the piles, scanning them to see what was happening.

 

Rose looked carefully at their surroundings as she listened to Rory and Amy debate their situation.

 

“You see, this is the real one. I just feel it. Don't you feel it?” Rory asked Amy with a happy sigh.

 

“I feel it both places,” Amy replied.

 

Rose kept silent. She was only aware of this place and it felt completely wrong to her. Add to that, she felt cold all over, like a chill was settling into her bones. She shivered slightly, but kept silent as the pair worked out their differences. That was, after all, the point of bringing Rory along with them.

 

“I feel it here. It's just so tranquil and relaxed. Nothing bad could ever happen here,” Rory responded and looked out at the misty, green fields surrounding the area.

 

“Not really me, though, is it? I mean, would I be happy settling down in a place with a pub, two shops and a really bad Amateur Dramatics Society? That's why I got pregnant, so I don't have to see them doing Oklahoma,” she told Rory firmly as he nearly glared at her for disliking their lives. She raised her voice to address the others, “Doctor, Jamie, what are you doing? And what are those piles of dust?”

 

The Doctor kneeled next to one of the mounds of dust and picked up a handful of it to run between his fingers. “Playtime is definitely over,” he said sadly.

 

Rose gasped and moved to hug Jamie tightly. The idea of those children being disintegrated like that was terrifying to her as a parent.

 

“What happened to them?” Rory asked.

 

They all noticed a large mob of elderly people gathering on the street near the playground where the children had been earlier.

 

“I have a feeling, they happened,” Rose said as she clutched the Doctor's hand tighter.

 

“They're just old people,” Amy argued.

 

“No, they're very old people. Sorry, Rory, I don't think you're what's been keeping them alive,” the Doctor informed them and led the group down towards the mob.

 

They were headed off halfway by the Dream Lord. He was wearing an odd outfit now, similar to what the seniors were wearing. He had an old suit with a yellow tie and a fedora on his head. “Hello, peasants. What's this, attack of the old people? Oh that's just ridiculous. This has got to be the dream, hasn't it? What do you think, Rose? You haven't had enough input in this adventure what with turning into a popsicle in a coma in the other world. The almighty Bad Wolf needs to earn her share of the glory today, too,” he sneered at them.

 

“Leave her alone,” the Doctor snarled at him.

 

“Do that again. I love it when he does that. Tall, dark hero. Leave her alone,” the Dream Lord mocked him.

 

“Stop it! Why are you doing this?” Jamie shouted.

 

“Oh, not so impressive, eh Jamie? Time to cry now? Best let mummy and daddy handle it all as usual,” the Dream Lord taunted.

 

“Stop this now. I know who you are,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Course you don't,” the Dream Lord snapped back at him.

 

“Course I do. No idea how this is happening, but there's only one explanation that makes sense in your behaviour. And I _will_ bring an end to it,” the Doctor threatened.

 

The Dream Lord smirked at the Doctor and eyed Jamie thoughtfully. “Never mind me. Maybe you should worry about them,” he told them and disappeared.

 

They all greeted the approaching mob in as friendly a manner as they could manage, but the people's faces looked completely blank as they swiftly marched towards them.

 

“Hello, we were wondering where you went. To get reinforcements, by the look of it. Are you alright? You look a bit tense,” the Doctor called to Mrs. Poggit.

 

“Hello, Mr. Nainby,” Rory said to one of the men.

 

“Rory,” Rose warned him warily.

 

“Mr. Nainby ran the sweet shop. He used to slip me the odd free toffee,” Rory defended, but gasped in shock when the man he was referring to picked him up by his shirt front. “Did I not say thank you?” Rory asked him in fear.

 

The man threw Rory into the mud violently. Rory shouted as he flew through the air and landed hard on his backside. “How did he do that?” he yelled.

 

“Jamie, what do you think?” the Doctor prompted.

 

“Umm... umm...” Jamie tried to think clearly and pulled out his sonic screwdriver to scan them. “Ooh, they aren't what they appear to be.”

 

“Be ready to run, all of you,” the Doctor warned and helped Rory back to his feet.

 

“Can't we just talk to them?” Amy asked nervously, backing away to grab Rory's arm.

 

The elderly people all opened their mouths wide to reveal a large, green eyeball.

 

“There's a creature living inside each of them. All of them,” Jamie told them.

 

“Do you recognize the species, Jamie? We've studied these,” the Doctor urged him further.

 

“Umm... Eknodines? But why would they be here?” Jamie asked, unsure of himself.

 

“Exactly and a perfect question. Talk to me! You are Eknodines. A proud, ancient race. You're better than this,” the Doctor addressed the aliens.

 

Rose urged Amy and Rory to run, while they took care of this mob. They ran across the field together, heading towards their house.

 

“Why are you hiding here? Why aren't you on your own planet?” Jamie shouted at them in a sudden burst of confidence that made his parents smile despite the threat they were facing.

 

In a frightening and distorted voice, Mrs. Poggit responded, “We were driven from our planet. So we've taken refuge here for years.”

 

“No wonder they live so long. You're keeping them alive,” the Doctor commented.

 

“We were humbled and destroyed. Now we will do the same to others,” Mrs. Poggit told them and the eye in her mouth extended towards them on a long tentacle. She breathed a green gas threateningly and they backed away from her far enough for it to disperse before it reached them.

 

“Ok, makes sense, I suppose. Credible enough. Could be real,” the Doctor admitted.

 

At that moment, a man wearing a reflective vest drove up on his bicycle and greeted the people on his way by. Mrs. Poggit breathed her disgusting gas on him and he dissolved into dust as the children had earlier.

 

“You need to leave this planet!” the Doctor demanded angrily.

 

The mob continued their march towards the family threateningly.

 

“I think it's time to do what we do best. Run!” Rose told them as she took both Jamie and the Doctor's hands in hers and pulled them along with her.

 

While they were running, Rose took the opportunity to work through the problem. “Ok, love, you've figured out who the Dream Lord is, so what's our solution? We just figure out which world is real and all the dangers just disappear from both of them?” she asked between gasping breaths. They were all fast runners, but these aliens weren't slouches either.

 

“That's what he seemed to be saying. Die in the dream and wake up in reality, safe and sound,” the Doctor replied. His confusion and fear were flowing through to her despite his outward confidence.

 

“Ok, but that doesn't make sense on its own. If one of these is reality...” Rose began but they were suddenly faced with the Dream Lord right in front of them.

 

“I think it might be time for a little nap. What do you think?” he sneered at them.

 

“No, no, no, no, no! Not now!” the Doctor shouted and redirected his family inside a nearby shop. He sonicked the lock shut, but the aliens started pounding on the doors.

 

The Dream Lord appeared right behind them and spoke ominously, “Oh, it would be bad to fall asleep here. Several dozen angry pensioners will destroy you with their horrible eye things.”

 

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Rose shouted at him and pulled both her husband and son into a back storage room that seemed to have a more secure door.

 

The aliens broke through the shop's glass doors and pushed their way inside just as the Doctor sonicked the lock on the storage room door and they all fell unconscious to the sound of birds once again.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Sitting up suddenly on the floor of the TARDIS, Amy exclaimed, “Ah! It's colder.”

 

“We all need to agree right now, which is the dream,” the Doctor told them as he crawled over to Rose's side and checked her again. Her heartbeat was nearly nonexistent and her skin was near frozen. A tear escaped his eye, but froze on his cheek.

 

“It's this, here,” Rory declared adamantly.

 

“He could be right. The science is all wrong here. Burning ice?” Amy acknowledged.

 

“No, no, no. Ice can burn. Sofas can read. It's a big universe. We have to agree to which battle to lose. All of us, now,” the Doctor pressed.

 

“But wait, dad. What mum was saying makes sense. If either of these is reality, waking up in one of them instead of the other, isn't going to make us safe and sound. The Dream Lord said we would wake up in reality and be safe, but neither of these is safe. What if they're both dreams?” Jamie deduced.

 

The Doctor's jaw dropped open as he realized how brilliant his family really was. He pulled Jamie into his arms for a fierce hug and kissed him on the forehead. “You and your mum are both absolutely brilliant. Amy, where are you in the other world?”

 

The birdsong was starting again, but Amy managed to mumble before falling asleep, “Home.”

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

They jolted awake back in the shop's storage room and the Doctor hugged both Rose and Jamie tightly.

 

“We've figured it out, mum,” Jamie announced happily.

 

“YOU. You figured it out, Jamie. Your brilliant mother sparked the idea and you ran with it, just like I always do with her,” the Doctor praised him.

 

“Ok, so, what's the plan?” Rose asked them.

 

“We're going to die in both worlds,” Jamie told her.

 

“What? Are you sure? I mean really, really sure? I trust you, both of you, but what if...” Rose trailed off as she looked in both of their eyes for reassurance. She took a shuddering breath as she nodded in agreement.

 

“In the process, though, we need to tell Amy and Rory to do the same. It's the only way to get all of us out of here. Amy said that they were at home, so we've got to get back to their house. At least one of us has to make it there before dying to tell them that we all need to die. That should throw us back into the TARDIS, where we're already freezing to death. Once we die there, we should then be back in actual reality,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Alright. Do we have a plan for getting back to Amy's then?” Rose questioned, bracing herself for what promised to be a dangerous run.

 

“Let's get all of our sonics on a frequency to disorient them long enough that we can run past and outside,” Jamie suggested, flicking through the settings on his sonic.

 

“Brilliant plan, Jamie. You are cracking today! Let's go with seven hundred and thirty four, B. We won't have much time, so fast as we can and don't wait for anyone. Remember that we're all going to die in this reality. The important thing is that one of us makes it to Amy and Rory, not all of us,” the Doctor instructed as they all switched their sonic screwdrivers to the same setting.

 

On a count of three, the Doctor pushed the door open and they all activated their sonics out the door. With a quick shove, he pushed Rose and Jamie out ahead of him and the three of them ran out of the shop.

 

Looking up and down the street to get his bearings, the Doctor shouted in frustration, “Oh, you couldn't live near the shops, could you?”

 

There were aliens disguised as elderly people shuffling around the streets everywhere.

 

“I take it we aren't saving people along the way this time?” Rose asked as they ran down the street towards Amy and Rory's house.

 

“No. This isn't real and neither are any of them. We have one goal and one goal only: to get to Amy and Rory. Well... two goals, I suppose when you add in telling them that we all need to die. Ok, three goals! Three goals and that is really and truly it, because then, we all need to kill ourselves,” the Doctor rambled as they dodged the aliens closing in on all sides.

 

Rose rolled her eyes at his antics, but kept running. She shrieked when her arm was suddenly grasped by one of the aliens and the Doctor's eyes widened in fear when Rose was suddenly disintegrated into a pile of dust.

 

“Keep running, Jamie! One of us has got to make it,” the Doctor shouted as he blinked back tears and reminded himself that none of this was real.

 

Jamie put on an extra burst of speed and ran faster than he ever had before. These longer legs of his teenage body were handy. Wait, where did that thought come from? Oh, he wasn't really a teenager, he realized. Deciding to make the most of it while he could, Jamie leapt over a nearby hedge and dashed towards Amy and Rory's house.

 

His brief lapse in attention when Rose was caught, spelled the beginning of the end for the Doctor. He stumbled on the uneven pavement as he dashed tears from his eyes and crashed into one of the aliens as they stepped out in front of him. He caught a glimpse of Jamie climbing the trellis on the side of Amy's house to get in through an upstairs window before he was surrounded by the aliens and followed his wife in her fate.

 

The lower windows and doors were being bombarded by the Eknodines, so Jamie climbed up the outside of the house and through an upstairs window. Inside the room, he found Amy and Rory huddled together. It appeared to be a nursery and they had wedged a chair under the doorknob to barricade themselves in the room.

 

“Where are Rose and the Doctor?” Amy asked, the fear in her eyes causing them to glisten with unshed tears.

 

“Listen to me. We've worked this out. You remember what I said back in the TARDIS. They are both dreams. We all need to die in both places in order to wake up in the real world,” Jamie explained.

 

“Where are they, Jamie?” Amy asked again as a tear finally fell down her cheek.

 

“It isn't real. None of this is real. We need to die here,” Jamie told her. He couldn't say it. They weren't really dead.

 

Behind him, one of the aliens crashed through the window and Rory jumped up to defend them. He pushed the alien back, but just before it fell, it breathed the deadly gas on Rory and he dissolved into a pile of dust beneath the window.

 

“Rory!” Amy cried and jumped to the side of his remains as her tears increased.

 

Jamie wrapped an arm around her shoulders and knew that this was where his mother would be best. She always knew how to comfort and reassure everyone. His dad said it was her compassionate nature.

 

“Amy, I need you to trust me. This isn't real. None of it is real. We die here and wake up on the TARDIS,” Jamie explained as he hugged her in sympathy.

 

“Ok,” she gasped through her sobs as she tried to pull herself back together.

 

Looking out the window, they saw that all of the aliens had disappeared. They weren't attacking the house or anyone anymore.

 

“What's going on? Where are they?” Amy questioned.

 

“I'm going to guess that this is the dream trying to prevent us from doing what we need to do. It won't let us just jump in front of the deadly aliens anymore. We'll have to do this the hard way,” Jamie told her. “Come on.”

 

Jamie took Amy's hand and led her back downstairs and out of the house. They climbed into a nearby car and Jamie started the engine.

 

“Do you know how to drive, Jamie?” Amy asked him nervously.

 

“I don't expect it matters, since the whole point right now is to crash rather spectacularly,” Jamie answered and avoided looking at his friend.

 

Neither of them said anything else as Jamie accelerated to a dangerous speed and headed straight for a large stone wall.

 


	20. Jamie's Choice: Part Three

Chapter Twenty – Jamie's Choice: Part Three

 

 

The Doctor awoke in the TARDIS. The others were still unconscious, but he was confident that they would come around soon. He moved quickly to check on Rose's condition again.

 

“Are you really sure that they're both dreams?” the Dream Lord whispered in his ear suddenly.

 

The Doctor jumped a bit in shock at his abrupt arrival. “Of course I'm sure,” he replied.

 

“Oh, but how about I bring the power back on? Safe and sound, now. Nice and warm and safe, just like I promised you would be when you all awoke in reality,” the Dream Lord told him as the lights came back on and Rose began to stir.

 

The Doctor quickly began to check her over as the seeds of doubt began to cloud his mind.

 

“Don't you see? You chose the right reality and you won. I shall withdraw. Farewell,” the Dream Lord told him and disappeared.

 

“What happened? Are we awake now?” Rose asked when her eyes fluttered open.

 

“I... I don't think so,” the Doctor admitted hesitantly. She was alive and everything seemed safe again, but they were so sure that both were dream worlds. Could he really risk all of their lives on that theory alone?

 

Rory awoke next, followed shortly by Jamie and Amy.

 

“What's going on, dad? The power is back on? But we should still be on the freezing TARDIS, unless we all just froze to death there?” Jamie questioned.

 

“No. We didn't freeze to death. The Dream Lord claims that this is reality and popped all the power back on, safe and sound,” the Doctor announced but looked skeptical.

 

“You don't believe him though,” Jamie deduced.

 

“No. No I don't,” the Doctor replied and walked to the console.

 

“So, what are we going to do?” Rose asked him.

 

“We're going to blow up the TARDIS,” the Doctor answered, looking to Rose for her support in this decision.

 

“What?” Rory shouted.

 

“But, Doctor, we're safe now. We're alive and we're safe,” Amy argued.

 

“I'm sorry, Amy, but we're not. We have to do this,” Jamie told her and joined his parents at the console.

 

Before they could argue any further, the Doctor, Rose and Jamie activated the necessary sequence to cause a massive explosion in the heart of their ship. With a sudden burst of light, they all blinked and found themselves safe and sound, but in slightly different positions from before. The blankets were gone and all traces of frost had disappeared as well.

 

Amy and Rory came down the steps from where they found themselves and approached the small family. The Doctor had some sparkly dust in his hand that he was examining carefully.

 

“Any questions?” the Doctor asked.

 

“What is that stuff, dad?” Jamie questioned, looking closer at the stuff in his hand.

 

“Specks of psychic pollen from the candle meadows of Karass don Slava. Must have been hanging around for ages. Fell in the time rotor, heated up and induced a dream state for all of us,” the Doctor explained and moved to the doors to blow the specks off of his hand and out into empty space.

 

“Are you sure that's the safest way to dispose of that, love?” Rose asked him with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Absolutely, perfectly safe... probably,” the Doctor told her.

 

“So, that was the Dream Lord, then? Those little specks,” Rory reasoned.

 

“No, no. No. Sorry, I guess it wasn't so obvious to everyone. Psychic pollen. It's a mind parasite. It feeds on the dark feelings and insecurities inside of you. It gives it a voice, turns it against you. It was feeding on Jamie,” the Doctor explained and wrapped an arm around Jamie's shoulders.

 

“What?” Jamie gasped and tensed immediately. He knew that the Dream Lord seemed to be picking on all of his deepest fears the whole time. But never fathomed that he could be an aspect of his own mind.

 

“Don't you see, Jamie? He was feeding on your feelings of inadequacy. For some reason, you seem to think that you'll never be more than just our son. That you'll never be your own person, with your own legends being told,” the Doctor told him and squeezed his shoulder a little tighter.

 

“Oh, Jamie! That just isn't true,” Rose cried and stood in front of him with her hands grasping his upper arms. “You are amazing and so, so special. You were the one that figured out the solution today. You are absolutely brilliant,” she reassured him.

 

“I think, Jamie and I need to go have a little hearts to hearts talk,” the Doctor told everyone and kissed Rose on the cheek as he led Jamie toward the butterfly room.

 

“ _I think I know what he needs. Let me have some time with him first and we'll let you know,”_ the Doctor thought to Rose. She nodded and let them go, but worried about what this solution might entail.

 

“We'll just go pop down to the swimming pool for a bit, yeah?” Amy suggested as she pulled Rory with her. They seemed a bit uncomfortable with the relatively personal family problems, but left Rose to her thoughts in the console room.

 

Rose knew that the reputation of the Doctor was a lot to live up to. Even she was living in his shadow. Only considered special and powerful because of her association with him. Well, that and the Bad Wolf, but even those powers came about from her devotion to him.

 

She was worried about what kind of solution the Doctor might suggest to help with this problem. Jamie was only eight years old and she really wasn't ready for him to grow up just yet.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Jamie and the Doctor sat together on the grass and watched as hundreds of multicoloured butterflies fluttered in the air around them.

 

“On Gallifrey, at the age of eight, when we looked into the Untempered Schism, we were taken from our families and sent to the Academy. We only saw our parents on special occasions then, for decades. There was no choice or alternative. That's just the way things were,” the Doctor told Jamie in a soft, gentle tone. 

 

He took a deep breath of the sweet smelling air before continuing, “On Earth, children go to school during the day, but come back home to their parents constantly until they are sometimes eighteen or even older before setting out on their own. You, Jamie, are a combination of both of these cultures. You are absolutely brilliant, as all Time Lords are expected to be. You are loving and compassionate, as your mother has taught you to be. You are more than capable of taking on an immense amount of responsibility, but physically, you are certainly too young to be on your own completely. I think however, that you may be in need of some independence from us.”

 

“What do you mean?” Jamie asked nervously.

 

“It is completely your choice, Jamie. Never feel that your mother and I don't want you with us every second of every day, because we do. But I think, that maybe what you need, is a bit of a change of scenery,” he reassured his son and took a deep, centring breath before continuing.

 

“What would you say to the idea of spending some time with your Uncle Jack? We know you'll be safe with him, he is very experienced with time travel and what to expect out here, but there's also the chance, with him and with Torchwood, for you to explore yourself and your abilities. To prove yourself from outside of my shadow for a little while,” the Doctor explained.

 

“For how long?” he mumbled, not sure if he was being kicked out of the TARDIS for unknowingly putting everyone's lives at risk.

 

“For however long you feel that you need. This isn't a punishment, Jamie. And you don't have to go at all. Believe me, your mother is not going to like this idea one bit, that's why I didn't ask her to come in here while we discussed it. But I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to give you an opportunity to make your own choices, your own mistakes and gain the confidence that you seem to crave. I didn't have a choice when I was taken to the Academy, you have a choice. You are more than welcome to stay, we want you to stay. But I don't want you to feel held back from becoming the incredible Time Lord that I know you can become,” his father told him and wrapped an arm around Jamie's shoulders.

 

“Right now? I mean, does it have to be right away, or can I think about it for a while?” Jamie asked him, feeling reassured that he wasn't being sent away.

 

“You can take all the time you need. It doesn't need to be today, tomorrow or even a few years from now. Jamie, you will be alive for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. There is absolutely no rush, but you are also only this young and in this formative stage of your ego once. Take a few days and look at the timelines. Think about what you want to do, this is a suggestion, just one option in a million. And your mother and I will support you in whatever decisions you make,” he said as he patted Jamie on the shoulder and stood up to give his son some time alone.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

The Doctor found Rose curled up in her chair in the library. When she noticed his arrival, she closed her book and looked up at him expectantly. The Doctor gave her a tense smile as he moved to sit in his chair opposite hers in front of the fireplace. He took a moment to collect his thoughts on how he would broach this subject with her while she continued to stare at him with wearing patience.

 

“I've offered him a choice. I'm not particularly happy with how soon this is all happening and I'm sure you won't be either, but the decision needs to be his,” the Doctor told her with some confidence.

 

“And what choice is that?” she pressed him for more information.

 

“To spend some time with Jack, away from the TARDIS. To experience things from a different perspective, but with someone we know and trust to keep him safe and well cared for. He hasn't had the experience of going to school with classmates and teachers the way you did. And I'm glad he won't be forcefully shipped off to the Time Lord Academy. But, even if Jack doesn't want to cart him all over the universe, your parents and Donna are at Torchwood to watch over him as well. He can help them with whatever adventures might arise and prove to himself that he is more than capable,” the Doctor explained carefully, knowing that this would be a difficult conversation.

 

Rose folded her hands together tightly as she absorbed the idea of her little boy being away from them. They had always been a very close and loving family. While she knew that Jamie needed to gain some independence at some point, she wasn't sure that she was ready for that yet. She knew her husband was right though, that if that's what Jamie wanted, they needed to allow him that chance.

 

“How long do you think he'd be gone?” Rose wondered.

 

“Well, I told him that he could decide for himself just how long he needs, but that we would always want him here and wish that we could spend every waking moment with him. This would be an exploration of himself and I don't want to put rules around that. He knows how to reach us when he wants to come back home, and we know that he will be safe and well cared for with our family and friends,” he responded diplomatically.

 

“Ok,” Rose whispered, but her eyes filled with tears as her strength threatened to break.

 

“Hey, hey, no, don't cry, my love. Come here, darling,” the Doctor told her and pulled her over to sit curled up in his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back, whispering words of love and support and shushing her sobs.

 

“It won't be right away. I told Jamie to take some time to think about this. We aren't in a rush for him to make this decision, but given recent events, not only with the psychic pollen, but also what's been happening with Amy and Rory, he seems to need a bit of a break,” he told her softly as he continued to rub her back. Rose had stopped crying and her breathing was settling back to normal, but she was still curled up tightly in his arms.

 

Rose nodded in acknowledgement of his words and resigned herself to accepting whatever decision their son made, whenever he made it about this. “Take me to bed, please, love,” she mumbled.

 

With a gentle tap on her nose and a loving smile, the Doctor picked her up and easily carried her to their room. Laying her softly on the bed, he removed his clothing down to an undershirt and boxers before climbing into the bed with her. As they snuggled together under the warm duvet, the TARDIS lowered the lights and they settled in for a few hours of rest.

 

They called Jack the next day to explain the situation and their suggestions. He wholeheartedly agreed that some time spent with Uncle Jack and his Torchwood team were just what Jamie needed to find his self confidence. He also agreed to take Jamie away from Earth once in a while for some extra experience with other planets and times. Jamie after all, was raised with that kind of travel on a daily basis. He wouldn't be happy for long being tied down to one planet and one time.

 

Jamie spent a few days thinking about it. He had some private and tearful talks with his mum and spent hours in the butterfly room on his own as well. In the end, he decided that he would try it. He could always call his parents to come and pick him up again at any time, if he found that this plan wasn't working out.

 

It was then, with many tears and kisses, that the Doctor and Rose left Jamie in the loving care of Jack for however long he needed. Pete and Jackie were close by, Donna, Mickey, Gwen, and Ianto worked there as well. They knew he would be safe and hoped that he would call them soon. They promised to visit often and Jamie promised to call just to chat as well.

 

When the doors closed, the Doctor seemed to flip his usual switch from enduring pain to manic as he clapped his hands and dashed up to the console. “So, Amy, Rory, how about a beach, eh? Somewhere warm and sunny, I think. Ah! Rio de Janeiro. What do you say?” he offered the disoriented couple.

 

“Umm, sure, yeah. That sounds great, Doctor,” Amy stuttered in response.

 

Rose wandered up behind them and put her arms around their shoulders. She quietly explained, “This is just his way of coping with the pain. He pushes it all down deep and pretends that everything is perfectly fine. Don't worry, I'll help him deal with it all later. For now, I think he could use a trip to take his mind off of things too.”

 

“Alright, Doctor. Rio sounds really nice,” Rory acknowledged. He and Amy were working through some of their problems and for now, he could try to enjoy himself. They would be back for their wedding soon enough.

 

 


	21. Hungry Earth: Part One

Chapter Twenty-One – The Hungry Earth: Part One

 

 

The TARDIS landed and the Doctor urged Amy and Rory out the door before them as he took hold of Rose's hand. Their bracelets clicked together and she could feel his swirling emotions. He was anxious, excited, worried and a little bit sad all at once. She knew he could feel similar emotions coming from her and they both worked to support each other in that moment.

 

“Behold, Rio!” he called as Amy and Rory exited the TARDIS.

 

“Nah,” Amy sighed as she looked out over a cool, misty graveyard.

 

“Not really getting the sunshine carnival vibe,” Rory pointed out as they stepped further out the door to allow the Doctor and Rose room to exit.

 

“No? Ooo, feel that, though. What's that?” the Doctor asked curiously and walked out further. He jumped up and down a few times as he looked around the area. “Ground feels strange. Do you feel that, love?” he wondered and looked back at the other three travellers. 

 

Rose shrugged and shook her head.

 

“Just me, then. Wait... that's weird,” the Doctor added and ran down further to examine some of the grass.

 

“Doctor, stop trying to distract us. We're in the wrong place. Doctor, it's freezing and I've dressed for Rio. We are not stopping here. Doctor, are you listening to me? It's a graveyard. You promised me a beach,” Amy complained, but the Doctor and Rose were too wrapped up in whatever current mystery had drawn the TARDIS here.

 

“Blue grass,” the Doctor whispered as he looked at a few blades he had plucked more closely.

 

“There are patches of it all around here. What do you suppose would cause that?” Rose wondered.

 

“Don't know. So, Earth, 2020-ish, ten years in your future. Wrong continent for Rio, I'll admit, but it's not a massive overshoot,” the Doctor informed Amy and Rory.

 

“Really, for him, hitting the right century isn't bad most of the time,” Rose teased and he playfully bumped shoulders with her.

 

“Why are those people waving at us?” Amy asked and the others followed her gaze across the valley. 

 

“Can't be,” the Doctor whispered and took a pair of binoculars out of his pocket. “It is. It's you two,” the Doctor told them and handed the binoculars to Rose to have a look for herself. She gasped as she watched the other Rory and Amy waving at them.

 

“No, we're here. How can we be up there?” Rory denied.

 

“Ten years in your future. Come to relive past glories, I'd imagine. Humans, you're so nostalgic,” the Doctor mused.

 

“We're still together in ten years?” Amy questioned.

 

“That is generally the idea when you plan to get married, Amy,” Rose whispered to her.

 

“No need to sound so surprised,” Rory complained insecurely.

 

“Hey! Let's go and talk to them. We can say hi to future us. How cool is that?” Amy said excitedly.

 

“Er, no, best not,” the Doctor told her.

 

“Really, Amy, not a good idea. I met myself as a baby once, and it was really, not a good day,” Rose informed her. The memory of Reapers flying in the air and the Doctor being eaten by one gave her shivers.

 

“Oh look... big mining thing. Oh, I love a big mining thing. See, way better than Rio. Rio doesn't have a big mining thing,” the Doctor observed, half in genuine observation and half trying to distract them from paradoxical behaviours.

 

Towering over the nearby trees was a large, yellow tower. The building was indeed the kind built to house the large drills used in mining operations.

 

“We're not going to have a look, are we?” Amy asked the Doctor, hoping to get back in the TARDIS and try again for Rio.

 

Rose looked at Amy with a raised eyebrow while the Doctor pretended to not even have heard her as he said, “Let's go and have a look. Come on, let's see what they're doing.”

 

The Doctor proceeded to pull Rose along with him. She was better at keeping up with him now. It had taken her a little while to get used to this incarnation's propensity for abruptly dragging her with him as he dashed off in some new direction. She was proud of herself for that and her shoulder was much happier as well, now that it stayed more firmly in its socket.

 

Amy caught up to them as they approached the fence that surrounded the mining area. “Rory is just putting something back in the TARDIS. He'll catch up in a few minutes,” she told them.

 

“Restricted Access. No unauthorized personnel. Hmm,” the Doctor read from the sign on the gate.

 

“Guess we know what that means,” Rose said with a patented Rose Tyler grin and pulled out her sonic faster than he could to open the padlock.

 

The Doctor grinned at her and pulled her into a spinning hug. He kissed her quickly and when he set her back down again, told her, “You are getting far too good with that thing.”

 

Amy gasped at them and scolded, “That is breaking and entering!”

 

“What did we break? Sonicking and entering. Totally different,” the Doctor responded and Rose hummed happily in a manner she had picked up from the Doctor's previous incarnation.

 

They opened the gate with a harsh squeak and Amy's smile grew to match theirs.

 

“Come on, then,” Amy told them and walked through.

 

“You're sure Rory'll catch us up?” the Doctor asked, looking back the way they came.

 

“Yeah, he's fine,” she moaned impatiently.

 

They made their way into the mine and the Doctor led them briskly through the dim hallways.

 

“What about now? Can you feel it now?” the Doctor asked them.

 

“Maybe,” Rose replied thoughtfully.

 

“Honestly, I've got no idea what you are on about,” Amy complained and rolled her eyes.

 

“The ground doesn't feel like it should,” he told her.

 

“A weird kind of vibration, yeah?” Rose asked him.

 

“It's ten years in the future. Maybe how this ground feels is how it always feels,” Amy theorized.

 

“Good thought, but no, it doesn't. Hear that? Drill in start-up mode. After-waves of a recent seismological shift and blue grass,” the Doctor listed as he put one of the blades of grass he had picked earlier into his mouth. After tasting it briefly, he pulled it back off of his tongue and made a face.

 

“Oh, please. Have you always been this disgusting?” Amy cringed.

 

“Yes,” Rose replied.

 

At the same moment, he said, “No, that's recent.” He glared at Rose, but there was no heat in it.

 

“What's in here? Hello,” the Doctor called as he peeked his head into a large room. There was a woman working in there who looked at the group of them suspiciously.

 

“Who are you? What're you doing here? And what are you wearing?” she asked as she looked at Amy's short shorts.

 

“I dressed for Rio,” Amy told her dismissively.

 

The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper as they approached and Rose put on her best official looking attitude. “Ministry of Drills, Earth and Science. New Ministry, quite big, just merged. It's a lot of responsibility on our shoulders. Don't like to talk about it. What are you doing?” the Doctor rambled as he looked at what she was working on.

 

“None of your business,” she snapped at him.

 

He immediately looked at the screen she had been staring at when they came into the room. It looked like seismological data scrolling by. “Where are you getting these readings from?” the Doctor asked her worriedly.

 

His furrowed brow told Rose that something was terribly wrong with the readings and watched as the woman moved a large piece of equipment off of the dirt beneath a large hole in the floor. “Under the soil,” the woman replied.

 

“The drill's up and running again,” a man announced upon entering the room and looked at the newcomers in confusion. “What's going on? Who are these people?”

 

“I'm Rose, that's Amy, and this is the Doctor. We're from the ministry, just doing a routine inspection,” Rose blustered, not remembering exactly what ministry the Doctor had said they were from. 

 

The Doctor grabbed a fistful of dirt from the hole in the floor and examined it. “Why's there a big patch of earth in the middle of your floor?” he asked, not particularly worried about who these people thought they were, so long as they answered his questions.

 

“We don't know. It just appeared overnight,” the woman answered, sensing his sudden worry over the situation, she walked back towards the screen.

 

“Good. Right. You all need to get out of here very fast,” the Doctor announced and Rose felt a wave of panic rising in her husband.

 

“Why?” the woman asked.

 

“What's your name?” the Doctor queried.

 

“Nasreen Chaudhry,” she replied.

 

“Look at the screens, Nasreen. Look at your readings. It's moving,” the Doctor told her.

 

Rose and Amy both knelt by the hole in the floor to look at it more closely.

 

“Hey, that's specialized equipment. Get away from it,” the man that had entered recently called to the Doctor accusingly.

 

“What is?” Nasreen questioned, ignoring the man's protest.

 

“Doctor, this steam, is that a good thing?” Amy interrupted.

 

“I sincerely doubt it,” Rose mumbled.

 

“Shouldn't think so. It's shifting when it shouldn't be shifting,” the Doctor told them.

 

“What shouldn't?” Nasreen insisted, unfamiliar with the Doctor's usual knack for not explaining his warnings entirely.

 

The ground suddenly shook and all of the lights flickered overhead. The Doctor snatched Rose's hand and pulled her close to his side as he looked over the floor worriedly.

 

“The ground, the soil, the earth, moving. But how? Why?” the Doctor rambled as he both explained and tried to work out the problem.

 

“Earthquake?” Amy suggested.

 

“What's going on?” the unidentified man asked.

 

“Doubt it, because it's only happening under this room,” the Doctor said in reply to Amy's thought.

 

The ground shook again and several more holes appeared in the floor. Everyone stepped back from the holes that had appeared.

 

“It knows we're here. It's attacking. The ground's attacking us,” the Doctor announced as he gripped his wife's hand even more tightly.

 

“No, no that's not possible,” Nasreen argued.

 

“I've learned that not possible, is usually very much possible,” Rose responded.

 

“Under the circumstances, I'd suggest... run!” the Doctor shouted and everyone darted towards the door.

 

They jumped over the holes in the floor as they went. The Doctor, Rose, and Nasreen had made it to the doorway and looked back towards Amy and the other man. He had landed on a once clear spot when a hole opened up beneath one of his feet. Amy moved to help him.

 

“Stay back, Amy. Stay away from the earth,” the Doctor warned her.

 

She jumped over a hole to grasp the man's hand and she told him reassuringly, “It's ok.”

 

Just then, another hole opened beneath Amy's feet and the Doctor and Rose began to panic.

 

“It's pulling me down,” Amy cried.

 

“Amy!” the couple both shouted as they ran to pull her out.

 

Nasreen moved to help the other man at the same time, while they focussed on their friend.

 

“Doctor, the ground's got my legs,” she shouted hysterically as she was pulled into the earth as deep as her waist.

 

“We've got you,” Rose reassured her as they each took hold of one of her arms.

 

“Ok. Don't let go,” Amy pleaded with them as Nasreen managed to pull the other man free and they backed away towards the door again.

 

“Never,” the Doctor told her.

 

“Doctor, what is it, why is it doing this?” Amy asked shakily.

 

“Stay calm. Keep hold of our hands. Don't let go. Your drill, shut it down. Go. Now!” the Doctor shouted over his shoulder to the mining personnel that were standing frozen by the door. They ran out finally when they snapped out of it.

 

“Can you get me out?” Amy questioned as her breathing became even more rapid and she looked back and forth at their worried faces.

 

“Amy, try and stay calm. If you struggle, it'll make things worse. Keep hold of our hands. We are not going to let you go,” the Doctor told her confidently.

 

She was suddenly pulled in deeper and wrenched from both of their grips. Rose and Amy both cried out in fear as they all scrambled to reestablish their grips on each other.

 

“Doctor, it's pulling me down. Something's pulling me,” Amy shouted painfully.

 

“We've got you, Amy. We will not let you go,” Rose told her, looking directly into her eyes.

 

“Hold on until they can just shut down the drill,” the Doctor added reassuringly.

 

“I can't hold on,” she cried as something pulled on her even harder. She was buried up to her shoulders as she asked, “What's pulling me? What is under the earth? I don't want to suffocate under there.”

 

“Amy, concentrate. Don't you give up,” he insisted.

 

“Tell Rory...” she began.

 

“No. Amy! You are going to tell him yourself!” Rose shouted at her and pulled as hard as she could with tears streaking down her cheeks.

 

“No! No! NO!!!!!” the Doctor shouted as Amy was pulled further and further into the soil.

 

They were both shouting even after her hands had slipped away from theirs and Rose clutched the Doctor's lapels as she sobbed into his shirt. He looked despairingly at the earth that had filled in behind where their friend had been lost and scanned it absently with his sonic. The Doctor rubbed Rose's back as she cried and just barely managed to keep his own tears from falling.

 

Nasreen and the other man ran back into the room and paused nearby at the scene.

 

“Where is she?” Nasreen asked them.

 

“She's gone. The ground took her,” the Doctor answered quietly and Rose wrapped her arms around his waist as she tried to calm herself again. 

 

“Is that what happened to Mo? Are they dead?” the man questioned as the Doctor released Rose and began to pace around the room.

 

Rose listened to everything and tried to process it all in case she could come up with something that the Doctor was missing. She wondered where Rory had wandered off to, but decided that they needed to focus on Amy first. If she was still alive, then she was in danger.

 

“It's not quicksand. She didn't just sink. Something pulled her in. It wanted her,” the Doctor rambled in thought.

 

“The ground wanted her?” Nasreen commented incredulously.

 

“You said the ground was dormant. Just a patch of earth, when you first saw it this morning. And the drill had been stopped,” the Doctor confirmed.

 

“That's right,” the man agreed.

 

“And the tremors only started when he said the drill was going again,” Rose realized.

 

“Yes, exactly. The ground fought back,” the Doctor acknowledged.

 

“So, what? The ground wants to stop us drilling? Doctor, that is ridiculous,” Nasreen told him derisively.

 

“I'm not saying that, and it's not ridiculous. I just don't think it's right,” he replied and paced some more in thought. “Oh, of course! It's bio-programming!” he shouted suddenly and aimed his sonic at the patch of earth again. The soil trembled when he activated it, confirming his theory and he chuckled.

 

“What?” Nasreen asked, not understanding what this strange man was talking about.

 

“Bio-programming. Oh, clever. You use bio-signals to resonate the internal molecular structure of natural objects. It's mainly used in engineering and construction, mostly jungle planets, but that's way in the future and not here. What's it doing here?” the Doctor babbled as he worked through the problem and continued pacing.

 

“Who would have that kind of technology in this time, then?” Rose prompted.

 

“Sorry, did you just say jungle planets?” Nasreen interrupted.

 

“You're not making any sense, man,” Nasreen's coworker admonished.

 

“What's your name?” Rose asked the man.

 

“Tony,” he replied.

 

“Ok, Tony, from the first moment that you saw us, has the Doctor been wrong about anything? He warned you about the readings before the shaking even started, he obviously has knowledge about things beyond your understanding. Instead of shouting insults, how about you try being helpful?” Rose chastised him angrily.

 

“Thank you, love. Now, the earth, the ground beneath our feet, was bio-programmed to attack,” the Doctor continued.

 

“Yeah, even if that were possible, which by the way, it's not. Why?” Nasreen interrupted with a glare at Rose, daring her to challenge her opinion on the impossibility of the situation as well.

 

“Stop you drilling. Ok, so we find whatever's doing the bio-programming, we can find Amy. We can get her back. Shush, shush, shush... Have I gone mad? I've gone mad,” the Doctor suddenly interrupted himself and stared blankly as he appeared to be concentrating on something.

 

“Doctor,” Nasreen complained.

 

“Shush, shush. Silence. Absolute silence,” he told them as he apparently listened to something that the others couldn't hear. “You've stopped the drill right?”

 

“Yes,” Nasreen told him as if that should be obvious.

 

“And you've only got the one drill?” the Doctor questioned.

 

Rose caught on to what he was implying and moved to put her ear to the ground. That's when she could hear it too.

 

“Yes,” Nasreen replied again.

 

“You're sure about that?” he insisted.

 

“Yes,” Tony told him, losing his patience with the ridiculous situation.

 

The Doctor joined Rose in listening to the ground as he laid down beside her. “So, if you shut the drill down, why can I still hear drilling? It's under the ground,” he told them.

 

“I can hear it too, love. Who would be under the ground?” Rose wondered.

 

“That's not possible,” Tony denied.

 

The Doctor sonicked all the nearby computer equipment as he quickly went to work on figuring out what was happening.

 

“Oh no, what... what are you doing?” Nasreen protested.

 

“Hacking into your records. Probe reports, samples, sensors. Good. Just unite the data, make it all one big conversation. Let's have a look. So, we are here and this is your drill hole. Twenty-one point zero zero nine kilometres. Well done,” he praised.

 

“Thank you. It's taken us a long time,” Nasreen replied proudly.

 

“What are you drilling for though? What are you trying to reach?” Rose asked her. The last time she had encountered this kind of situation, they had to face the devil on an impossible planet.

 

“We found patches of grass in this area, containing trace minerals unseen in this country for twenty million years,” she told them.

 

“The blue grass? Oh, Nasreen. Those trace minerals weren't X marking the spot, saying dig here. They were a warning. Stay away. Because while you've been drilling down, someone else has been drilling up,” the Doctor told her. He could understand their curiosity, it was something he admired in humans, but he knew in this case, it was going to be trouble.

 

The computer beeped as it completed its task and displayed the results of the deep sensor readings. There appeared to be dozens of tunnels surrounding their main one going down.

 

“Oh, beautiful. Network of tunnels all the way down,” the Doctor observed.

 

“No, no, we've surveyed that area,” Tony denied.

 

“You only saw what you went looking for,” the Doctor responded.

 

“What are they?” Nasreen asked as a group of signals appeared in one of the tunnels and the computer beeped to notify them of their appearance.

 

“Heat signals. Wait, dual readings, hot and cold... doesn't make sense. And now they're moving. Fast. How many people live nearby?” the Doctor demanded.

 

“Just my daughter and her family. The rest of the staff travel in,” Tony replied.

 

“Grab this equipment and follow me,” the Doctor ordered as he closed the case of one of the computers and began to carry it towards the door. Rose followed after him, not sure what equipment if any there was for her to carry.

 

“Why? What're we doing?” Nasreen insisted, not sure if there was any reason to trust these strangers.

 

Noticing her hesitation in trusting his instructions, the Doctor moved back to Nasreen's side to convince her. “That noise isn't a drill, it's a transport. Three of them, thirty kilometres down. Rate of speed looks about a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. Should be here in ooo, quite soon. Twelve minutes. Whatever bio-programmed the earth is on its way up... now,” the Doctor told her.

 

They ran down the road towards the home of Tony's family in the hopes of warning them.

 

“How can something be coming up when there's only the Earth's crust down there?” Tony asked, slightly out of breath as he tried to keep up with the Doctor and Rose.

 

“You saw the readings,” the Doctor countered, irritated that the man still refused to acknowledge the evidence in front of his own eyes.

 

“Who are you, anyway? How can you know all this?” Nasreen demanded.

 

Suddenly, there was a strange, red light in the sky. It looked almost like some kind of sustained lightning, crackling overhead.

 

“Whoa, did you see that?” Nasreen exclaimed.

 

“No, no, no,” the Doctor moaned and pulled a slingshot out of his pocket.

 

“Is that a forcefield, love?” Rose asked, watching as he shot a rock into the sky. It hit the barrier and the whole sky lit up with a dim, red light. He began to scan it with his sonic.

 

“Energy signal originating from under the Earth. We're trapped,” the Doctor informed them.

 

Rory came running towards them from around the side of the building nearby. “Doctor, something weird's going on here, the graves are eating people,” he called to them.

 

Rose noticed that a young woman and a boy about Jamie's age followed him. She was hit by the fact that this boy was in terrible danger and wasn't nearly as equipped to handle it as their son would be, if he were there with them.

 

“Not now, Rory. Energy barricade, invisible to the naked eye. We can't get out and no one from the outside world can get in,” the Doctor continued.

 

“What? Ok, what about the TARDIS?” Rory wondered.

 

“Er, no. Those energy patterns would play havoc with the circuits. With a bit of time, maybe, but we've only got nine and a half minutes,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Nine and a half minutes to what?” Rory questioned.

 

“There's something on its way up from under the surface of the Earth. And it's going to be here very soon,” Rose told him.

 

“Where's Amy?” Rory asked, looking around urgently for his fiancée.

 

“Get everyone inside the church,” the Doctor ordered, avoiding Rory's question.

 

Rose moved to face Rory and placed her hands on his shoulders. “She was taken, Rory. Taken into the ground. But the Doctor and I will stop at nothing to get her back,” Rose told him assuredly.

 

“Taken? How? Why didn't you stop it?” he roared furiously.

 

“I tried. I promise, I tried,” the Doctor told him, not wanting the man to shout at Rose over this.

 

“Well, you should've tried harder!” he wailed.

 

“Rory, please. You know we did everything we could to keep her safe. From what we can tell, she's alive and we will get her back,” Rose reassured him as calmly as she could manage in the face of his panic.

 

“I'll find Amy. I'll keep you all safe, I promise. Come on, please. I need you alongside me,” the Doctor pleaded with him.

 

The Doctor and Rose followed the others into the church, bringing the last of the computer equipment with them. Rory stayed outside for the moment as he tried to calm down.

 

They joined the others inside the church and began to set up the computer systems again. Rose sat nearby while the Doctor, Tony and Nasreen took care of the equipment.

 

“So, we can't get out, we can't contact anyone, and something, the something that took my husband, is coming up through the Earth,” the young mother shouted angrily.

 

“Yes. If we move quickly enough, we can be ready,” the Doctor replied.

 

“No, stop. This has gone far enough. What is this?” she demanded.

 

“He's telling the truth, love,” Tony assured her.

 

“Come on. It's not the first time we've had no mobile or phone signals. Reception's always rubbish,” she denied.

 

“Look, Ambrose. We saw the Doctor and Rose's friend get taken, ok? You saw the lightning in the sky. I have seen the impossible today, and the only person who's made any sense of it for me, is the Doctor,” Nasreen told her confidently.

 

“Ambrose, was it?” Rose asked and when the woman nodded, she continued, “I know you're worried about your husband. I would be too, but believe me when I tell you, that the Doctor and I will find him.”

 

“Can you get my dad back?” the boy asked the Doctor directly.

 

“Yes. But I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say from this second onwards, because we are running out of time,” the Doctor replied, addressing the young man eye to eye, just as he would his own son. He felt a pang for Jamie at that moment. Jamie would have taken this young man under his wing and the boys would have worked together on the tasks that needed doing. He met Ambrose's eyes, showing her the sincerity of his promise.

 

“So, tell us what to do,” Ambrose responded, accepting her fate for the moment.

 

“Thank you. We have eight minutes to set up a line of defence. Bring me every phone, every camera, every piece of recording or transmitting equipment you can find,” the Doctor ordered.

 

“Is there anything I can get you from the TARDIS, love?” Rose asked him.

 

“Nothing that you'd be able to find fast enough, it's all buried. We'll have to make due with what's close by,” he replied and gave her a quick kiss as he pulled her with him to look for equipment.

 

They taped the lights, cameras, and heat sensors that they had found all over the area and the Doctor used his sonic to connect them all to the computers they were monitoring. When they got back to the church, they saw that the dots indicating whatever things were on the way, were getting closer.

 

“Right, guys, we need to be ready for whatever's coming up. I need a map of the village marking where the cameras are going,” the Doctor told them with a pat to the young boy's shoulder. His name was Elliot and he was indeed about the same age as Jamie.

 

“I can't do the words. I'm dyslexic,” Elliot told the Doctor.

 

Bending down to meet Elliot, face to face, the Doctor replied, “That's alright, I can't make a decent meringue. Draw like your life depends on it, Elliot.”

 

At that, the boy ran to get some paper and pencils. Rose wanted to go and help him. Drawing with Jamie had been one of her favourite pastimes when he was growing up. But she felt the Doctor urging her to stay with them and give him a chance to prove to himself that he could help. She realized in that moment that maybe too often she had done just that kind of thing with Jamie and that was what had stifled his self-confidence.

 

“Six minutes forty,” Tony called out and Rose snapped herself back to attention. This was no time to wallow in self-pity. There was work to be done.

 

They eventually had lights and cameras set up all over the area, all feeding into one of the computers in the church. The Doctor noticed a Meals on Wheels van outside and opened the door to check inside.

 

Ambrose came by, her arms filled with tools, rifles and even a cricket bat. “Oi! What're you doing?” she shouted to the Doctor.

 

“Resources. Every little helps. Meals on Wheels. What've you got here, then. Warmer in the front, refrigerated in the back,” the Doctor called as he crawled into the back of the van.

 

Ambrose put the things from her arms onto the front seats and said, “Bit chilly for a hideout, mind.”

 

“Why do you have all of those things, Ambrose?” Rose asked her. The Doctor came out from the back of the van and placed a hand on Rose's shoulder.

 

“Like you say, every little helps,” she defended herself.

 

“No. No weapons. It's not the way we do things,” the Doctor told her.

 

“You said we're supposed to be defending ourselves,” she snapped at them.

 

“But Ambrose, it's far too easy for accidents to happen with weapons around. Think about Elliot. What if he were to get hurt?” Rose told her sincerely.

 

“You're better than this. I'm asking nicely. Put them away,” the Doctor said and guided Rose back to the church. They were running out of time.

 

The Doctor set Rose to watch the camera feeds while he examined the other sensor readings of the things coming up the tunnels. Elliot ran in soon after with his map in hand.

 

“Look at that. Perfect! Dyslexia never stopped Da Vinci or Einstein. It's not stopping you,” the Doctor praised as he examined the map.

 

“I don't understand what you're going to do,” Elliot said curiously.

 

“Two phase plan. First, the sensors and cameras will tell us when something arrives. Second, if something does arrive, I use this to send a sonic pulse through that network of devices,” he explained as he showed Elliot his sonic screwdriver. “A pulse which would temporarily incapacitate most things in the universe.”

 

“Knock 'em out. Cool,” Elliot responded with a smile.

 

“That's how we handle things,” Rose added.

 

“Lovely place to grow up 'round here,” the Doctor commented.

 

“Suppose. I want to live in a city one day. Soon as I'm old enough, I'll be off,” Elliot told them.

 

“I was the same where I grew up,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Did you get away?” Elliot asked eagerly.

 

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

 

“Do you ever miss it?” the boy wondered.

 

The Doctor was silent then, for a moment. Images of snow topped mountains and fields of red grass blazed through his mind. He felt Rose's hand take his and feelings of love and understanding flowed through their bond.

 

“So much,” the Doctor told Elliot.

 

“Is it monsters coming?” Elliot questioned. “Have you met monsters before?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, we have,” he told the frightened boy in front of them.

 

“You scared of them?” 

 

“No, they're scared of us,” Rose reassured him. “We know how to deal with monsters.”

 

“Will you really get my dad back?” he needed to know how sure these people really were.

 

“No question,” the Doctor stated.

 

“I left my headphones at home,” Elliot said and ran off out the door.

 

Rose followed the Doctor to check on Rory when Tony and Nasreen came back to the church. Rory was setting up the last of the video cameras in the graveyard.

 

“How're you doing?” the Doctor asked him.

 

“It's getting darker. How can it be getting dark so quickly?” Rory asked, ignoring the question of how he was doing while his love was missing.

 

Above them, the barrier was turning a dark translucent colour, like sunglasses only darker.

 

“Shutting out light from within the barricade. Trying to isolate us in the dark,” the Doctor contemplated.

 

“Are they nocturnal?” Rose wondered.

 

“Good question,” the Doctor praised and they heard a rumbling noise. “It's here.”

 

 


	22. Hungry Earth: Part Two

Chapter Twenty-Two – Hungry Earth: Part Two

 

 

Running back to the church, they saw Ambrose trying to get in the door. “I can't open it. It keeps sticking. The wood's warped,” she told them.

 

The Doctor and Rose moved to help push on the heavy wooden door. Rory stood by and watched the three of them struggling.

 

“Any time you want to help,” the Doctor shouted at him.

 

“Can't you sonic it?” Rory asked.

 

“The sonics don't work on wood,” Rose replied and pushed harder on the door.

 

“That is rubbish,” Rory told them.

 

“Oi! Don't diss the sonic!” the Doctor responded angrily.

 

Rory finally moved to help them and between the four of them, the door finally released. They ran into the main area, where Nasreen and Tony were already studying the computers. The ground started shaking again and several objects started to fall from the shelves.

 

“See if we can get a fix,” the Doctor mumbled as he ran to look at the video feeds.

 

They looked for any sign of movement from the cameras, but suddenly, the light overhead exploded, the computers sparked, and all of the power went out.

 

“No power,” Tony called when he moved to check the switches across the room.

 

“It's deliberate,” the Doctor replied after checking the back of the computers.

 

“What do we do now?” Rory questioned frustratedly.

 

“Nothing. We've got nothing. They sent an energy surge to wreck our systems,” the Doctor despaired.

 

“Is everyone ok? Is anyone hurt?” Rory asked, shifting into his training as a nurse.

 

“I'm fine,” Nasreen responded.

 

Tony assured Rory that he was fine with a wave.

 

“Me too,” added Ambrose.

 

The ground rumbled loudly and they could hear thundering impacts from somewhere nearby. The Doctor stopped his nervous pacing for a moment to listen to the ground again.

 

“Doctor, what was that?” Rory wondered.

 

“It's like the holes at the drill station,” Tony commented worriedly.

 

“Is this how they happened?” Nasreen questioned.

 

“It's coming through the final layer of Earth,” the Doctor told them and stood up again.

 

“What is?” Nasreen insisted, despite knowing that none of them had any more information than they did before.

 

The rumbling stopped and everyone waited.

 

“The banging's stopped,” Tony mumbled, breaking the tense silence.

 

“Where's Elliot? Has anyone seen Elliot? Did he come in? Was he in when the door was shut? Who counted him back in? Who saw him last?” Ambrose suddenly began to panic when she noticed that her son wasn't with them.

 

“We did,” the Doctor told her in answer to her last question.

 

“Where is he?” she demanded.

 

“He just said that he left his headphones at home. I'm sure he's fine, but let's go find him right now,” Rose told her reassuringly.

 

“And you let him go? He was out there on his own?” she asked incredulously.

 

They ran to the door to go look for Elliot, just as they heard him knocking from the other side.

 

“Mum! Grandpa Tony! Let me in!” Elliot called through the door.

 

“Elliot!” Ambrose cried. “He's out there. Help me!”

 

Everyone did their best to pull on the difficult door, but there weren't enough handholds for everyone to help effectively.

 

“Open the door. Mum! There's something out here,” Elliot shouted.

 

Rose's heart was thundering in her chest as the voice on the other side of the door morphed into the sound of Jamie's. She imagined her own son crying for help and something inside of her howled in rage. She couldn't hear the frustrated cries of the people wrestling with the door and none of them noticed when her eyes began to glow with golden light. Suddenly, the door burst open with a flash of gold sparks that were all too familiar to the Doctor and he turned quickly to see the light fading from her eyes. Rose collapsed in a dead faint and the Doctor caught her quickly.

 

Ambrose and Tony ran off into the dark graveyard, calling out for Elliot. Rory and Nasreen looked nervously into the dark from the stairs of the church, watching for the unknown threat, as the Doctor quickly revived his wife.

 

“What? What happened?” Rose mumbled and clutched at her head.

 

“You tell me. How did you do that?” the Doctor asked as he scanned her with his sonic.

 

“It was... I thought... I thought I heard Jamie instead of Elliot and I got so scared,” Rose tried to explain and tears started to fall from her eyes.

 

The Doctor hugged her tightly. “It's alright, love. It's ok. Jamie is safe with Jack and your mum. You somehow got that door open, but now we need to go and save Elliot. Alright?” he soothed as he held her close and stroked her hair gently.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, let's go,” Rose answered and forced herself back to her feet.

 

By the time the rest of them caught up to Ambrose and Tony, they could see something running off into the dark.

 

“What happened?” the Doctor demanded.

 

“My dad's hurt,” Ambrose replied. Tony had a hand clasped tightly to his neck and was leaning heavily against one of the gravestones.

 

“Get him to the church, now,” the Doctor ordered. Rory and Nasreen grabbed Tony on both sides and helped him back into the relative safety of the church.

 

“Elliot's gone. They've killed him, haven't they?” Ambrose cried as she clutched a pair of headphones and stared into the darkness. Rose wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders supportively.

 

“I don't think so. They've taken three people when they could've just killed them up here. There's still hope, Ambrose. There is always hope,” the Doctor told her reassuringly.

 

“Then why have they taken him?” she mumbled, shaking with fear for her son.

 

“We'll find out, Ambrose. We'll find him and get him back to you,” Rose responded and rubbed her arms to try and calm her trembling form.

 

“We _will_ find Elliot, I promise. But first I've got to stop this attack. Please, get inside the church,” the Doctor told her. “Rory is a nurse, he'll help with your dad's injury. Rose, I need you with me.”

 

Ambrose joined the others inside the church as the Doctor dragged Rose off with him into the darkness.

 

\--'-{@ @}-'--

 

Approaching the Meals on Wheels van, the Doctor communicated silently, just in case they were overheard.  _“I want you to hide inside the back of the van, while I try to draw their attention,”_ he told his wife.

 

“ _And we're going to try to trap one of them?_ ” she asked.

 

“ _That's the plan, yeah. I'll give you a signal when to jump out and we'll shove them into the back of the van together,_ ” he replied.

 

With Rose waiting impatiently in the back of the van, the Doctor pulled a pair of infrared glasses out of one of this pockets. He followed a dark figure in the trees from a distance, and noticed that the creature didn't register any heat above the temperature of its surroundings.

 

“ _Cold blood. I know who they are,”_ the Doctor thought to Rose.

 

“ _Wanna share with the class, then?”_ Rose prompted.

 

“ _In a minute... get ready,”_ he replied as he took a large fire extinguisher from the front of the van. 

 

He saw the creature approaching through the reflection in the van's window and turned quickly to startle it as it attacked. He banged on the side of the van as he sprayed the cold gas into the startled face of his attacker. Rose jumped out of the back of the van then and helped him wrestle the creature into the van before slamming the doors shut.

 

“We got it!” Rose squealed happily and the Doctor picked her up in a spinning hug.

 

“Defending the planet with Meals on Wheels!” he shouted happily.

 

As the Doctor placed her feet back on the ground, however, there was another tremor. A sound similar to what they heard on the arrival of the transports came from nearby and the sky began to clear again.

 

“Sounds like they're leaving,” the Doctor mused.

 

“Why would they do that? Why would they leave their friend here?” Rose asked as she patted the side of the van that was shaking with the protests of the creature locked inside.

 

“Now both sides have hostages. Come on, let's get this one somewhere we can chat,” the Doctor told her as he moved to drive the van back to the church. The Doctor turned the refrigeration in the back of the van to full blast, so that by the time they reached the church, the cold blooded creature was completely unconscious.

 

They moved her to the basement of the church and handcuffed her. Leaving for a little while, they checked on the others to explain until she was ready to talk to them.

 

“So, I think I've met these creatures before. Different branch of the species, mind, but all the same. Rose and I are going to talk to them. We want to settle this as peacefully as possible so that everyone is returned unharmed,” the Doctor informed them.

 

“Are you sure?” Rory asked.

 

“Very sure,” he responded as he took Rose's hand and began to lead her back towards the basement with him.

 

“But the sting?” Rory questioned, sounding very concerned about this course of action.

 

They were standing in the doorway of the room now as the Doctor replied, “Venom gland takes at least twenty-four hours to recharge.” He added more loudly into the room, “Am I right? I know what I'm doing. We'll be fine.”

 

Rory left then and the creature crawled out of the shadows.

 

“I'm the Doctor, this is Rose. We've come to talk. I'm going to remove your mask,” the Doctor told her and urged Rose to stay off to the side. He took the silver mask off of the creature to reveal a face that looked very human except that it was green and covered in reptilian skin.

 

“You are beautiful. Remnant of a bygone age on planet Earth. And by the way, lovely mode of travel. Geothermal currents projecting you up through a network of tunnels. Gorgeous. Mind if we sit?” the Doctor rambled and pulled out two folding chairs for he and Rose to sit on nearby.

 

“A bygone age? You mean they were on Earth before humans?” Rose deduced.

 

“Got it in one. You are brilliant. Now. Your people have a friend of ours. We want her back. Why did you come to the surface? What do you want? Oh, I do hate a monologue. Give us a bit back. How many are you?” the Doctor questioned her slowly as he watched her.

 

“I am the last of my species,” she hissed in reply.

 

“Really? ... No. Last of the species. The Klempari Defence. As an interrogation defence, it's a bit old hat, I'm afraid,” the Doctor told her.

 

“I am the last of my species,” she repeated insistently.

 

“No. You're really not. Because I was the last of my species and I know how it sits in a heart. So don't insult me. Let's start again. Tell me your name,” he told her forcefully and they watched as she looked warily between the two of them.

 

“Alaya,” she said finally.

 

“How long has your tribe been sleeping under the Earth, Alaya? It's not difficult to work out. You're three hundred million years out of your comfort zone. Question is, what woke you now?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“We were attacked,” she snapped at them.

 

“The drill,” he concluded.

 

“It wasn't meant as an attack,” Rose told her.

 

“Our sensors detected a threat to our life support systems. The warrior class was activated to prevent the assault. We will wipe the vermin from the surface and reclaim our planet,” Alaya snarled.

 

“Do we have to say vermin? They're really very nice,” the Doctor replied and took his wife's hand.

 

“Primitive apes,” Alaya hissed.

 

“Oi! Who are you calling an ape? You slithering...” Rose shouted.

 

“Rose!” the Doctor interrupted and pulled her back from approaching Alaya.

 

“The humans are an extraordinary species. You attack them, they'll fight back. But, there's a peace to be brokered here. I can help you with that,” the Doctor said calmly. 

 

Rose crossed her arms and calmed herself. She didn't want to start a war over petty insults.

 

“This land is ours. We lived here long before the apes,” she hissed with a ferocious glare at Rose, knowing that the term angered her.

 

“Doesn't give you automatic rights to it now, I'm afraid. Humans won't give up the planet,” the Doctor told her.

 

“So we destroy them,” Alaya snapped.

 

“You underestimate them,” he warned.

 

“You underestimate us,” she replied.

 

“One tribe of Homo Reptilia against six billion humans? You've got your work cut out,” the Doctor informed her, hoping she would see reason.

 

“We did not initiate combat, but we can still win,” Alaya insisted, the stubbornness of her warrior class shining through.

 

“Tell me where our friend is. Give us back the people who were taken,” the Doctor ordered.

 

“No.”

 

“I'm not going to let you provoke a war, Alaya. There'll be no battle here today,” the Doctor insisted.

 

“The fire of war is already lit. A massacre is due,” she snarled.

 

“Not while I'm here,” the Doctor told her firmly as he put both his and Rose's chairs away. He led Rose back to the doorway.

 

“I'll gladly die for my cause. What will you sacrifice for yours?” Alaya called before they left.

 

Back in the main room, they addressed Tony, Nasreen, Ambrose and Rory. They knew that they needed to negotiate with someone other than a warrior. They needed to contact someone in charge of the tribe that could call off the attack.

 

“You're going to what?” Rory asked.

 

“We're going to go down below the surface, to find the rest of the tribe, to talk to them,” the Doctor explained.

 

“You're going to negotiate with these aliens?” Ambrose questioned, clearly disbelieving this was the plan.

 

“There aren't aliens though. They were here first. Sort of... dinosaur people. They've been sleeping under the ground and they want to take back what they think is their planet,” Rose tried to explain.

 

“Once known as the Silurian race, or, some would argue, Eocenes, or Homo Reptilia. Not monsters. Not evil. Well, only as evil as you are. The previous owners of the planet, that's all. Look, from their point of view, you're the invaders. Your drill was threatening their settlement. Now, the creature in the crypt. Her name's Alaya. She's one of their warriors, and she's my best bargaining chip. I need her alive. If she lives, so do Elliot and Mo and Amy, because we will find them. While we're gone, you four people, in this church, in this corner of planet Earth, you have to be the best of humanity,” the Doctor told them sincerely.

 

“And what if they come back? Shouldn't we be examining this creature? Dissecting it? Finding its weak points?” Tony argued.

 

“Is that what you hope they're doing to the people they took from us?” Rose shouted at him. “What kind of _creature_ are you? She's a person. She's a soldier who was sent to defend her people and, though she may not look it, she's scared. Just as scared as you would be. While we're gone, treat her the way you hope they're treating Amy, and Elliot, and Mo.”

 

“Exactly. We return their hostage, they return ours, nobody gets harmed. We can land this together, if you are the best you can be. You are decent, brilliant people. Nobody dies today. Understand?” the Doctor finished.

 

Rory nodded while Tony and Ambrose looked away. Nasreen, on the other hand, started clapping at the sincerity of their speech. With a nod to all of them, the Doctor took Rose's hand and started walking back to the TARDIS. As they reached the doors, Nasreen ran up beside them with an excited smile on her face.

 

“No, sorry, no. What are you doing?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“Coming with you, of course. What is it? Some kind of transport pod?” she wondered as she ran her hands over the panelled doors of the time ship.

 

“Sort of, but you're not coming with us,” the Doctor told her firmly.

 

“He's right. You're not,” Tony agreed when he joined them.

 

“I have spent all my life excavating the layers of this planet, and now you want me to stand back while you head down into it? I don't think so,” Nasreen argued.

 

“I don't have time to argue,” the Doctor told her.

 

“I thought we were in a rush,” Nasreen countered.

 

“Are you sure, Nasreen? It's going to be very dangerous down there,” Rose asked, needing to be sure she understood the risks in running with the Doctor.

 

“Oh, so's crossing the road,” Nasreen replied with a smile. Rose smirked because she felt the same way.

 

“Oh, for goodness sake. Alright then, come on,” he said as he led them into the ship.

 

Rose and the Doctor took their places at the console while they waited for Nasreen to take in her surroundings. She stood by the doors for a moment, gaping at the size of the console room. It was even bigger than the one that Rose had first seen when she joined the Doctor on the TARDIS and while she loved that coral interior, she had to admit that this one was quite impressive.

 

“Welcome aboard the TARDIS. Now, don't touch anything. Very precious,” the Doctor announced as he began running a few pre-flight checks.

 

“No way. But... but that's... this is fantastic. What does it do?” Nasreen stuttered as she moved to join them by the controls.

 

Rose smiled at the newcomer, she was beginning to see why her husband loved taking people with him all the time. She took hold of one of his hands and squeezed it lovingly.

 

“Everything,” he told Nasreen with a smile. “I'm hoping, if we're going down, that barricade won't interfere.”

 

The Doctor was suddenly cut off from any further thoughts on that matter as all three of them were knocked off of their feet. The TARDIS lurched from side to side despite the time rotor remaining completely still.

 

“What's happening, Doctor?” Rose shouted as she pulled herself back to her feet.

 

“Isn't this what it does?” Nasreen asked worriedly.

 

“I'm not doing anything. We've been hijacked. I can't stop it. They must've sensed the electromagnetic field. They're pulling the TARDIS down into the Earth,” the Doctor told them.

 

“Great. So it's like the Sycorax. Well, at least you're awake this time, love,” Rose commented and wrapped an arm around his waist so they could steady each other.

 

The monitor, showing what was happening outside, displayed dirt and rocks racing past them as they fell deep into the Earth. The TARDIS stopped with a mighty jolt as they hit the bottom and all three of them were again thrown to the floor. The Doctor and Rose began laughing as this was an all too familiar situation, even if it wasn't as frequent as it used to be.

 

Nasreen reached over to snap one of the Doctor's braces. “Where are we?” she asked.

 

They all jumped to their feet and headed for the doors. The Doctor reached a hand outside first before heading outside.

 

“Looks like we fell through the bottom of their tunnel system. Don't suppose it was designed for handling something like this,” the Doctor explained as he took his wife's hand and started to explore.

 

“How far down are we?” Nasreen asked.

 

“Oh, a lot more than twenty-one kilometres,” he replied.

 

“So why aren't we burning alive?” she wondered.

 

“Don't know. Interesting, isn't it?” the Doctor responded excitedly. He and Rose both smiled and ran to check further down the tunnel.

 

“It's like this is everyday for you two,” she called after them.

 

“Not everyday,” the Doctor replied.

 

“More like every other day, yeah?” Rose agreed. They smiled at each other as if they were newlyweds instead of having been married for close to a decade, then continued their exploration of the tunnel.

 

“What is it we're hoping to find?” Nasreen called as they searched.

 

“We're looking for a small tribal settlement probably housing around a dozen Homo Reptilia? Maybe less,” the Doctor shouted back to her while he led Rose down another passageway.

 

“One small tribe,” Nasreen responded.

 

“Yeah,” he told her and looked curiously at Rose, thinking it sounded like Nasreen may have found something. Rose nodded and they moved to find her and see what it was.

 

“Maybe a dozen?” Nasreen told them as they came around the corner into the large cavern. Below them was a giant, underground city with rivers of lava bubbling between islands covered in glass domes that seemed to house plants and shone with bright lights. The city was huge.

 

“Oh my god,” Rose gasped and squeezed the Doctor's hand tightly.

 

“Ah... Maybe more than a dozen. Maybe more like an entire civilization living beneath the Earth,” the Doctor acknowledged.

 


	23. Cold Blood

Chapter Twenty-Three – Cold Blood

 

 

They walked along the pathways between the domes of the underground city, looking for a way inside to find their friends.

 

“This place is enormous and deserted. The majority of the race are probably still asleep. We need to find Amy. Looking for heat signature anomalies,” the Doctor told them as he scanned the area with his sonic.

 

“But Doctor, how can all this be here? I mean, these plants...” Nasreen wondered.

 

“Advanced technology. Maybe they've found a way to grow them using geothermal energy or something,” Rose postulated.

 

“Oh, I love it when you talk technical,” the Doctor said with a growl as he pulled Rose into a fierce, but quick kiss. “Anyway! We must be getting closer to the centre of the city,” he announced as he pulled himself back to the task at hand.

 

“You're sure this is the best way to enter?” Nasreen asked him, ignoring the couple's sudden outburst.

 

“Front door approach. Definitely. Always the best way,” the Doctor assured her.

 

On cue, an alarm sounded as they passed through the hallway. A computer voice sounded, “Hostile life forms detected area seventeen.”

 

“Except when, you know, the backdoor works better. Would this be the time to run, love?” Rose suggested.

 

They were suddenly surrounded by warriors on both sides. Their masks were on and their guns raised towards them. All three raised their arms in surrender.

 

“We're not hostile. We're not armed. We're here in peace,” the Doctor shouted in their defence.

 

One of the masked warriors stepped forward and sprayed the trio with some kind of gas, knocking them all unconscious.

 

Rose was suddenly torn from her unconscious state by a burning pain in her mind. She could hear her husband screaming in pain and felt it stabbing at her as well. She could see him in the chamber next to her, some kind of green lights passing over him repeatedly.

 

“Stop it! Stop hurting him! Doctor!” she shouted and clamped her own eyes shut to try and block out the pain.

 

“Argh! Rose, I'm so sorry, love,” he shouted between his own cries of anguish.

 

“How can they have escaped? This proves all prisoners should remain under military guard,” the female Silurian argued.

 

“I'm sure you'd prefer to be in charge of everything and everyone, Restac, but we rank the same. Is there any word from Alaya?” the male Silurian in a white lab coat asked her.

 

“No,” Restac replied curtly.

 

“It's fine to show concern, you know. She's part of your gene-chain. I'm decontaminating now,” the man said.

 

“Decontamination? No, no, no!” the Doctor shouted at him, but the lights changed and his pain level increased.

 

“It's alright, it won't harm you. I'm only neutralizing all your ape bacteria,” the man said reassuringly.

 

“But he isn't an ape! He's not from this planet!” Rose shouted.

 

“Look at the scans. Two hearts. Totally different! Totally not ape! Remove all human germs, you remove half the things keeping me alive,” the Doctor informed him.

 

The Silurian finally seemed to get the message and turned off the machine. Both Rose and the Doctor sighed in relief as they looked through the glass at each other.

 

“No, complete the process,” Restac insisted.

 

“Oh, that's much better, thanks. Not got any celery, have you? No. No, not really the climate. Tomatoes, though. You'd do a roaring trade in those. I'm the Doctor, that's my wife, Rose, by the way. And oh, there's Nasreen, good,” the Doctor babbled as the man woke Nasreen, who was in the chamber on the other side of Rose.

 

“Oh, a green man,” Nasreen mumbled as she regained awareness of her surroundings.

 

“Hello. Who are you?” the Doctor asked the Silurian woman. She looked a lot like Alaya, but had a large scar over her left eye.

 

“Restac, Military Commander,” she hissed at him.

 

“Oh dear, really? There's always a military, isn't there?” the Doctor grumbled.

 

“Your weapon was attacking the oxygen pockets above our city,” the male Silurian informed them.

 

“Oxygen pockets, lovely. Ooo, but not so good with an impending drill. Now it makes sense,” the Doctor replied.

 

“It was a misunderstanding. They didn't know you were here. It wasn't an attack,” Rose defended.

 

“Where is the rest of your invasion force?” Restac demanded of the Doctor.

 

“Invasion force? Me and Rose and Nasreen? No. We came for the humans you took. And to offer the safe return of Alaya. Oh wait, you and she, what is it? Same genetic source? Of course you're worried, but don't be, she's safe,” the Doctor told her calmly.

 

“You claim to come in peace, but you hold one of us hostage,” Restac hissed in reply.

 

“You already had three humans down here before we came to talk with you and resolve this situation. I hardly think that keeping one of yours safely behind puts us in a threatening position,” Rose told her.

 

“I don't negotiate with apes. I'm going to send a clear message to those on the surface,” Restac announced harshly.

 

“What's that?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Your execution,” she snarled.

 

“No!! No, you can't! Doctor!” Rose cried loudly as she fought with the restraints over her arms.

 

Several warriors entered the room and kept them all within cover of their weapons as they were released from their restraints. Rose immediately flew into her husband's arms and he hugged her tightly. They were escorted under guard as the Doctor explained to the two ladies why the Silurians moved underground to begin with.

 

“These must be the only ones awake. The others must still be in hibernation,” the Doctor told them.

 

“So, why did they go into hibernation in the first place?” Nasreen asked.

 

“Their astronomers predicted a planet heading to Earth on a crash course. They built life underground and put themselves to sleep for millennia to avert what they thought was the apocalypse, when in reality it was the moon coming into alignment with the Earth,” the Doctor explained.

 

All of the Silurians stopped and stared at him.

 

“How can you know that?” the Silurian scientist asked him. They had learned that his name was Malohkeh.

 

“Long time ago, I met another tribe of Homo Reptilia. Similar, but not identical,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Others of our species have survived?” Restac demanded to know.

 

Rose could instantly feel the Doctor's worry about revealing what had happened during that last meeting. She squeezed his hand in support, knowing that it wouldn't help build trust between them if they started lying now.

 

“The humans attacked them. They died. I'm sorry,” he responded regretfully.

 

“A vermin race,” Restac hissed with a glare at Rose as if it were all her fault.

 

They seemed to have arrived at their destination when they entered a large room with tiered seating on each side and a long table in the middle. The Doctor and Rose kept their hands clenched tightly together and their bracelets linked. They admired the great room's architecture and decor.

 

“You're not authorized to do this,” Malohkeh argued with Restac.

 

“I am authorized to protect the safety of our species while they sleep,” Restac responded.

 

“Oh, lovely place. Very gleaming,” the Doctor interrupted.

 

“This is our court and our place of execution,” Restac hissed at him.

 

“Let them go,” demanded the voice of Amy as she entered the room wielding a weapon just like the guards that had escorted them.

 

“Amy Pond. There's a girl to rely on,” the Doctor announced.

 

“You're covered both ways, so don't try anything cleaver, buster,” Amy told them.

 

They saw another human at the door behind them, carrying a similar gun.

 

“Mo?” Nasreen gasped in shock.

 

“Now, let them go, or I shoot,” Amy threatened.

 

Restac approached Amy, calling her bluff.

 

“I'm warning you,” Amy told her, but obviously wasn't prepared to follow through.

 

The warrior disarmed her easily and restrained her as well.

 

“Don't touch her!” Rose shouted in Amy's defence.

 

“And you,” Restac ordered with a nod towards Mo. The nearest warrior disarmed and restrained him as well.

 

“Alright, Restac, you've made your point,” Malohkeh told her, hoping that she would be satisfied with prisoners and not kill them.

 

“This is now a military tribunal. Go back to your laboratory, Malohkeh,” Restac ordered him.

 

He hissed at her and warned, “This isn't the way.”

 

“Prepare them for execution,” she demanded and the warriors began to restrain all of them against the large, square pillars in the room.

 

Rose and the Doctor managed to keep their hands clasped, despite being chained for execution. _“Do you have a plan yet, love?”_ Rose asked him silently.

 

“ _Working on it, I need a diplomat, not a soldier,”_ he replied frustratedly.

 

“Ok, sorry. As rescues go, didn't live up to its potential,” Amy apologized from her position against the other pillar.

 

“We're glad you're ok,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Me too. Lizard men, though,” Amy responded.

 

“Homo Reptilia. They occupied the planet before humans. Now they want it back,” he explained.

 

“After they've wiped out the human race,” Nasreen added.

 

“Right. Preferred it when I didn't know, to be honest,” Amy told them.

 

“Why are they waiting? What do you think they're going to do with us?” Nasreen wondered as they saw their firing squad just staring at them while Restac paced angrily.

 

“Issue demands? Most likely war tactic isn't it?” Rose suggested and the Doctor squeezed her hand.

 

A communication screen appeared in front of them, displaying Rory, Ambrose, and Tony.

 

Restac asked, “Who speaks for the apes?”

 

There was some mumbling between them before Rory approached and answered, “I speak for the humans. Some of us, anyway.”

 

“Do you understand who we are?” Restac questioned.

 

“Sort of... a bit... not really,” he admitted.

 

“We have ape hostages,” she informed him and gestured to where they were all restrained.

 

“Doctor! Rose! Amy!” Rory shouted as the sight of his fiancée blinded him to anyone else.

 

“Mo! Mo, are you ok?” Ambrose asked.

 

There continued to be some discussion back and forth between them, as if the Silurians weren't present and in control of the situation.

 

“Not to interrupt,” the Doctor interrupted, “but just a quick reminder to stay calm.”

 

“Show me Alaya. Show me, and release her immediately unharmed, or we kill your friends one by one,” Restac demanded.

 

“No,” Ambrose denied.

 

“Steady now, everyone,” the Doctor warned her.

 

“Ambrose, stop it,” Tony told her.

 

“Get off me, Dad. We didn't start this,” she argued.

 

“Let Rory deal with this, Ambrose, eh?” the Doctor suggested, trying to get a cooler head in control of the communications.

 

“We are not doing what you say anymore. Now, give me back my family,” Ambrose demanded.

 

“No. Execute the orange girl,” Restac ordered.

 

“No! No, wait!” Rory cried desperately.

 

“Rory!” Amy shouted back to him, her eyes wide with fear.

 

“Don't do this!” the Doctor pleaded and the communications were suddenly cut off.

 

Just as Restac shouted, “Fire!” another voice interrupted her.

 

“Stop! You want to start a war while the rest of us sleep, Restac?” an elderly man asked as he entered the hall, accompanied by Malohkeh.

 

“The apes are attacking us,” Restac defended her actions.

 

“You're our protector, not our commander, Restac. Unchain them,” the elder ordered the guards, who obeyed his commands.

 

“I do not recognize your authority at this time, Eldane,” she responded, her inner fury quite apparent.

 

“Well then, you must shoot me,” Eldane replied, unafraid.

 

“You woke him to undermine me,” Restac accused Malohkeh.

 

“We're not monsters. And neither are they,” Malohkeh told her.

 

“What is it about apes you love so much, hmm?” she questioned.

 

“While you slept, they've evolved. I've seen it for myself,” he defended.

 

“We used to hunt apes for sport. When we came underground, they bred and polluted this planet,” she argued fiercely.

 

“Shush now, Restac. Go and play soldiers. I'lll let you know if I need you,” Eldane chastised her patronizingly.

 

“You'll need me, then we'll see,” Restac snarled at Eldane before leaving the room.

 

Eldane allowed the Doctor to communicate with Rory again. They would send transport for them to come down and return Alaya. The Doctor explained this in his usual manner, which allowed for very little response and conveyed much more information than most people could process in the allotted time frame.

 

“I'd say you've got a fair bit to talk about,” the Doctor stated when Eldane was seated at the long table across from Nasreen and Amy.

 

“How so?” Eldane wondered.

 

“You both want the planet. You both have a genuine claim to it,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of humanity?” Eldane asked.

 

“Me? No. But they are,” he replied and indicated the two women sitting with him.

 

“What?” Nasreen gasped.

 

“No, we're not,” Amy argued.

 

“Course you are. Amy Pond and Nasreen Chaudhry, speaking for the planet? Humanity couldn't have better ambassadors. Come on, who has more fun than us?” the Doctor assured them with a smile.

 

“I'd be happy to help, Amy, but I haven't lived on Earth in over a decade and I'm not fully human anymore,” Rose told her.

 

“Is this what happens, in the future? The planet gets shared? Is that what we need to do?” Amy asked them in a slightly hushed voice, but was easily overheard.

 

“Er, what are you talking about?” Nasreen questioned as she stood to join them at the end of the table.

 

“Oh, Nasreen, sorry. Probably worth mentioning at this stage, Rose and I travel in time a bit and sometimes take friends along,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Anything else?” Nasreen wondered, taking this all rather well.

 

“You may have caught on that we're not exactly human,” Rose added.

 

“There are fixed points through time where things must always stay the way they are. _This_ is not one of them. This is an opportunity. A temporal tipping point. Whatever happens today, will change future events, create its own timeline, its own reality. The future pivots around you, here, now. So, do good, for humanity, and for Earth,” the Doctor encouraged the ladies.

 

“Right. No pressure there, then,” Amy acknowledged with a nervous sigh.

 

“We can't share the planet. Nobody on the surface is going to go for this idea. It is just too big a leap,” Nasreen argued.

 

“Come on. Be extraordinary,” he prodded, knowing it was just that kind of speech that got her down here with them to begin with.

 

He knew it had worked when she turned back to the negotiating table and sat next to Amy. Rose volunteered to stay as a mediator during the discussions, while the Doctor went with Mo and Malohkeh to retrieve Elliot from where he was held in stasis. He was completely unharmed and once revived, very happy to see his father. The Doctor, Mo, and Elliot rejoined the others in the main hall to find that discussions were going rather well.

 

Rose relayed the information that they were discussing places where the Silurians could live that were considered uninhabitable by most human populations. The Silurians were offering to share their considerable technology and knowledge to improve both races in return for their hospitality on the surface. Everything was going very well, until Rory and Ambrose entered the room, followed by Tony carrying a body wrapped in an orange blanket.

 

“Something's wrong,” the Doctor announced.

 

“What did you do?” Rose gasped in shock.

 

“No. Don't do this. Tell me you didn't do this,” the Doctor denied.

 

Tony laid the body on the floor and the Doctor pulled back the blanket to reveal the face of Alaya. The Doctor and Rose both felt their hearts clench at the lost chances for peace and possible danger that this might put them all into.

 

“What did you do?” the Doctor demanded, looking at Tony. 

 

Tony dropped his gaze in shame, but it was Ambrose who spoke, “It was me. I did it.”

 

“Mum?” Elliot gasped and stared at his mother, wide-eyed.

 

“I just wanted you back,” she defended her actions.

 

“I'm sorry. I didn't know. You have to believe me, they're better than this,” the Doctor pleaded with Eldane.

 

“This is our planet!” Ambrose shouted.

 

“We had a chance here,” the Doctor told her angrily.

 

“What part of us telling you that keeping her safe would keep your son safe, did you not understand? This might very well get us all killed, Ambrose!” Rose shouted back. “And I am not ready to leave my son without his parents just yet, thank you very much!”

 

“Leave us alone,” she told the Silurians meekly, less confident with the Doctor and Rose chastising her.

 

“In the future, when you talk about this, you tell people there was a chance, but you were so much less than the best of humanity,” the Doctor said with a scowl and squeezed his wife's hand. _“We'll find a way out of here, love,”_ he thought to her privately.

 

Restac and her troops entered the room then. Restac saw the body lying on the floor and knew immediately that it was Alaya. She moved to crouch beside her and wailed sadly.

 

“My sister. And you want us to trust these apes, Doctor?” she spat at him.

 

“One woman. She was scared for her family. She is not typical,” he told her defensively.

 

“I think she is,” Restac hissed and stalked towards Ambrose.

 

“One person let us down, but there is a whole race of dazzling, peaceful human beings up there. You were building something here. Come on. An alliance could work,” he pleaded, hoping that they could somehow work past this. But he knew that there was still too much hostility on both sides for it to be true now.

 

“It's too late for that, Doctor,” Ambrose told him as she stared down the Silurian Commander.

 

“Why?” the Doctor wondered.

 

“Our drill is set to start burrowing again in fifteen minutes,” Ambrose said confidently.

 

“What?” Nasreen gasped and stared at Tony, knowing that Ambrose wouldn't have known how to set that up.

 

“What choice did I have? They had Elliot,” he defended.

 

“Don't do this. Don't call their bluff,” the Doctor warned. Rose leaned her face into his shoulder, wondering how it all came to this.

 

“Let us go back. And you promise to never come to the surface ever again. We'll walk away, leave you alone,” Ambrose demanded.

 

“Execute her,” Restac ordered and Ambrose's eyes widened in fear.

 

The Doctor and Rose knew that was their cue to do what they did best. Grabbing several of the humans, they both shouted, “Run!”

 

“Everybody, back to the lab! Run!” the Doctor added as they sprinted away from the guards.

 

The Doctor disabled several of their weapons with his sonic as he took up the rear of their retreat to the lab. He warned them to go back into hibernation if a deal couldn't be reached, but Restac wouldn't listen. All of the humans and Eldane locked themselves in the lab and the Doctor asked Elliot and Mo to watch the screens for signs that the warriors were breaking through. He tossed a stopwatch to Amy and asked her to keep reminding him how long it would be until the drill started up again.

 

“Ok, um, twelve minutes 'til drill impact,” she told him nervously.

 

“Tony Mack. Sweaty forehead, dilated pupils. What are you hiding?” the Doctor asked him and opened the top of his shirt to reveal a mass of swollen, green veins pulsing from a large wound on his neck.

 

“Tony, what happened?” Nasreen asked.

 

“Alaya's sting. She said there's no cure. I'm dying, aren't I?” Tony admitted.

 

The Doctor scanned him with his sonic and examined the readings for a moment before responding, “You're not dying, you're mutating.”

 

“How can I stop it?” Tony asked, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

 

“Decontamination program. Might work. Don't know. Eldane, can you run the program on Tony?” the Doctor suggested.

 

“Doctor, shedload of those creatures coming our way. We're surrounded in here,” Mo announced.

 

“So, question is, how do we stop the drill given we can't get there in time? Plus, also, how do we get out, given that we're surrounded? Nasreen, how do you feel about an energy pulse channelled up through the tunnels to the base of the drill?” the Doctor rambled as he worked out solutions.

 

“To blow up my life's work?” Nasreen asked incredulously.

 

“Yes. Sorry. No nice way of putting that,” he admitted, hoping that she would see that this was the only solution right now.

 

“Right, well, you're going to have to do it before the drill hits the city in er...” she trailed off with a look to Amy.

 

“Eleven minutes, forty seconds,” she told them.

 

“Yes. Squeaky bum time,” the Doctor said nervously.

 

“What?” Rose squeaked and looked at her husband with raised brows.

 

“Yes, but the explosion is going to cave in all the surrounding tunnels, so we have to be out and on the surface by then,” Nasreen added.

 

“But we can't get past Restac's troops,” Rory argued.

 

“I can help with that. Toxic Fumigation. An emergency failsafe meant to protect my species from infection. A warning signal to occupy cryo-chambers. After that, citywide fumigation by toxic gas. Then the city shuts down,” Eldane explained and began to type into the computer and begin the process.

 

“But what about the ones that refuse to go into the cryo-chambers, Eldane? They would die,” Rose asked him.

 

“Only those foolish enough to follow Restac,” he answered reassuringly.

 

“Eldane, are you sure about this?” the Doctor questioned insistently.

 

“My priority is my race's survival. The Earth isn't ready for us to return yet,” Eldane replied wisely.

 

“No,” the Doctor agreed.

 

“Ten minutes, Doctor,” Amy warned.

 

“But it should be, Restac. There has to be a way to make it ready for you. Your race deserves a proper life just as much as they do,” Rose insisted.

 

“You're absolutely right, love. So, here's the deal. Everybody listening. Eldane, you activate shutdown. I'll amend the system, set your alarm for a thousand years time. A thousand years to sort the planet out. To be ready. Pass it on. As legend, or prophesy, or religion, but somehow make it known. This planet is to be shared,” the Doctor informed them all. 

 

“Yeah. I get you,” Elliot agreed with a smile.

 

The Doctor and Rose beamed at him. Getting future generations to accept this was the absolute key to solving the problem.

 

“Nine minutes, seven seconds,” Amy interrupted.

 

The Doctor rambled through his actions as he set up all of the systems that needed to be started up or shut down. Eldane started up the fumigation program, warning the Silurians to go back into their chambers.

 

“There's not much time for us to get from here to the surface, Doctor,” Rory warned.

 

“Ah ha, super-squeaky bum time. Get ready to run for your lives. Now,” the Doctor replied, excited to be cutting it close to the wire again.

 

“Yeah, you are never saying that again,” Rose told him, exasperated.

 

“But the decontamination program on your friend hasn't started yet,” Eldane informed them.

 

In the end, both Tony and Nasreen decided to stay with the Silurians and there were tearful goodbyes that pushed their time limit ever closer. Once that was settled, they all ran back to the TARDIS as quickly as they could. The Doctor slammed into the doors as he pulled his key from his pocket and started unlocking the door.

 

“No questions, just get in. And yes, I know, it's big. Ambrose, sickbay up the stairs, left, then left again. Get yourself fixed up. Come on. Five minutes and counting,” the Doctor rambled as he ushered everyone inside.

 

Amy, Rory, the Doctor, and Rose were the only ones left outside the time ship when they were all suddenly distracted by a bright white light coming from the wall behind the TARDIS. Turning to see what was causing it, they all saw a large, glowing crack.

 

“Not here. Not now. It's getting wider,” the Doctor mumbled.

 

“What's it doing here?” Rose gasped.

 

“The crack on my bedroom wall,” Amy said, entranced by the sight.

 

“And the Byzantium. All through the universe, rips in the continuum,” the Doctor agreed. “Some sort of space-time cataclysm. An explosion, maybe. Big enough to put cracks in the universe. But what?”

 

“Four minutes fifty. We have to go,” Amy told them.

 

“The Angels laughed when I didn't know. Prisoner Zero knew. Everybody knows except me,” the Doctor pouted as he stared at the anomaly.

 

“Except us, you mean,” Rose added and took his hand.

 

“Doctor, just leave it,” Amy argued.

 

“But where there's an explosion, there's shrapnel,” the Doctor announced as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket.

 

“Doctor, you said that the light from the crack would erase you from ever existing,” Rose argued.

 

“Not me. Not just reaching inside. I'm a complicated time-space event, remember? I'd have to throw my whole body in to have it take me. Normal people, just the light... ugh,” the Doctor trailed off and groaned in pain as he reached inside the crack to find something that he could pull out and use to identify its source.

 

“Be careful, love,” Rose called to him worriedly.

 

“I've got something,” he shouted and pulled the handkerchief back out, wrapped around something.

 

“What is it?” Amy asked him.

 

“I don't know,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“Doctor?” Rory interrupted as he saw Restac crawling into the cave.

 

“She was there when the gas started. She must have been poisoned,” Amy reasoned as to why she seemed so injured.

 

“You,” Restac snarled at them and raised her weapon.

 

“Ok, get in the TARDIS, everyone,” the Doctor ordered as he moved protectively in front of Rose.

 

“You did this,” Restac hissed angrily.

 

“Doctor!” Rory shouted and pushed the Doctor out of the way of the blast that shot through the air, instead striking Rory squarely in the chest.

 

Restac crumpled to the ground and dropped the weapon.

 

“No!” Rose shrieked.

 

“Rory!” Amy shouted and dove to his side where he lay on the ground, shaking.

 

“Rory, can you hear me?” the Doctor asked, checking him over.

 

“I don't understand,” Rory mumbled.

 

“Shush. Don't talk,” Amy soothed him. “Doctor, is he ok? We have to get him onto the TARDIS.”

 

“We were on the hill. I can't die here,” Rory argued with fate.

 

“Oh, Rory,” Rose sobbed quietly.

 

“Don't say that,” Amy told him and stroked her hand over his forehead.

 

“You're so beautiful. I'm sorry,” Rory whispered and they could see the life fade from his eyes.

 

“Doctor, help him,” Amy demanded.

 

Rose and the Doctor noticed the light from the crack reaching for Rory's body in little strands of energy. “Amy, we need to move away from the light,” Rose warned.

 

Amy didn't move from her fiancé's side.

 

“If it touches you, Amy, you'll be wiped from history. Amy, move away now,” the Doctor told her firmly.

 

“No. I am not leaving him. We have to help him,” she argued.

 

“Amy, the light is already around him. There is nothing we can do for him now,” Rose insisted and started to pull on her arm.

 

“I am not leaving him,” Amy shouted.

 

The Doctor and Rose both physically dragged her into the TARDIS before the light could spread any further. Once inside, the Doctor sonicked the lock, so that Amy couldn't run back outside and went to the console to take them away before the tunnels collapsed.

 

“No! No! No! Let me out! Please let me out. I need to get to Rory. That light. If his body's absorbed, I'll forget him. He'll never have existed. You can't let that happen,” Amy pleaded and pounded her fists against the door.

 

Rose stood next to her and tried to calm her down. “Amy, there was nothing else that we could do. You have to believe me when I say that we would never have left him there if there were any way of saving him,” Rose told her sincerely and rubbed her upper arms.

 

“We can't just leave him there!” she argued.

 

“Keep him in your mind. Don't forget him. If you forget him, you'll lose him forever,” the Doctor told her when he returned from moving the TARDIS.

 

“When we were on the Byzantium, I still remembered the Clerics because I'm a time traveller now, you said,” Amy insisted.

 

“They weren't part of your world. This is different. This is your own history changing,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Don't tell me it's going to be ok. You have to make it ok,” Amy argued.

 

“It's going to be hard, but you can do it, Amy. Tell us about Rory, eh? Fantastic Rory. Funny Rory. Gorgeous Rory. Amy, listen to me. Do exactly as I say. Amy, please,” the Doctor begged her urgently.

 

“Where did you go on your first date with Rory?” Rose asked her.

 

Amy stared into the distance, concentrating. She seemed to be reaching for memories as they all slipped from her grasp.

 

“What's Rory's favourite food?” she tried instead.

 

“I can't,” Amy mumbled, tears streaming down her face.

 

“Yes you can, Amy. You can do this. You are strong and you can do this, for Rory,” Rose urged her on.

 

As the TARDIS landed on the surface, there was a large jolt and they were all thrown to the floor. The Doctor noticed the box for Amy's engagement ring had fallen on the floor in front of him. He put the box inside his jacket pocket for the moment.

 

Rose helped Amy to stand up, she seemed more disoriented than usual by the jolt.

 

“What were you saying?” Amy asked, her tears having ceased completely.

 

The other humans returned from the infirmary, then and exited the TARDIS along with the rest of them.

 

“I have seen some things today, but this is beyond mad,” Mo said as he walked from the ship.

 

“Five seconds 'til it all goes up,” Amy informed them as she checked the stopwatch one last time.

 

They watched from the graveyard where they had initially landed as the building over the drill exploded spectacularly.

 

“You could've let those things shoot me. You saved me,” Ambrose said to the Doctor, wondering why she should have been shown any forgiveness for her actions.

 

“That's not the way we do things, Ambrose,” Rose told her softly.

 

“An eye for an eye. It's never the way. Now, you show your son how wrong you were, how there's another way. You make him the best of humanity, in the way you couldn't be,” the Doctor told Ambrose.

 

Amy, the Doctor, and Rose were left alone by the TARDIS. The silence felt heavy as the couple were unsure what to say to Amy after the loss she didn't even know she had suffered.

 

“You two are very quiet,” Amy said suddenly. “Oh, hey look. There I am again. Hello, me!” she shouted and waved to her future self.

 

There was only Amy there now, to wave back. They watched as she walked away, over the hill. They saw a hint of sadness in Amy's eyes then.

 

“Are you alright, Amy?” Rose asked and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder.

 

“I thought I saw someone else there for a second. I need a holiday. Didn't we talk about Rio?” Amy asked, changing the subject.

 

The Doctor unlocked the door for them, fiddling with it more than necessary and mumbling, “You go in. Just fix this lock. Keeps jamming.”

 

Amy went inside, but Rose knew that there was nothing wrong with the lock and looked at him with her arms crossed over her chest. The Doctor sighed, knowing he had been caught in his little fib. He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and opened the fabric to reveal what was inside. There was a broken piece of blue and white wood that matched the edge of the sign on the front of the TARDIS door.

 

They pulled each other into a fierce hug, not knowing what this could possibly mean for their future, but knowing that it wouldn't be good.

 

 

 


	24. Life at Torchwood

Chapter Twenty-four – Life at Torchwood

 

 

It had been a week since Jamie had left the TARDIS. One week of trying to find his place with the Torchwood team. One week since he started trying to find himself.

 

He felt more lost than ever.

 

And... his grandmother was driving him spare.

 

"Uncle Jack, you've got to get me out of here! If gran starts complaining about how little she's seen of me again, I'm going to blow something up. Honestly, just a year or two and we can be back here tomorrow," Jamie pleaded.

 

Jack laughed at Jamie's discomfort. "She's not that bad."

 

"Yes she is and you know it. I've never had to spend so long with her before and she's usually talking with mum or yelling at dad, so I'm off the hook for the most part," he argued.

 

"Alright, we'll take a trip somewhere,” Jack acquiesced. “Knowing your dad, you've been to just about every museum and theme park. You're too young for most of my favourite places. How about some adventure in the Gamma Forests?" Jack suggested.

 

"Anything's better than gran's shepherd's pie," he sighed in relief.

 

They each packed a rucksack with clothes and supplies before going on their little field trip. Jack let his team know they were going, but expected to be back shortly as far as they were concerned. Jamie had his mobile with universal roaming, just in case.

 

The Gamma forest was beautiful. The foliage on the planet was purple instead of green, the trees were wide and tall, like in Earth's rain forests. Jamie could hear dozens of species of birds, several primates and even some feline species. He turned slowly as he stared up at the forest canopy.

 

"Wow, Uncle Jack, this is fantastic!" he said gleefully.

 

"I know. It's always so peaceful here," Jack told him, which might have prompted the explosions they heard in the distance.

 

With an excited glance towards each other, they started running towards the trouble. When they approached the nearby village, they immediately saw the invading spaceships. There were two small craft, both equipped with extensive weaponry. Jamie analyzed the equipment and deduced that they were pirates. Their ships were pieced together with technology from all over this galaxy and judging by the invaders' rough appearance, there wouldn't be further troops coming in.

 

"They're pirates. Probably won't be more than a dozen of them, even with two ships. If we can get the natives out of here, they'll probably take whatever things they feel are valuable and leave. But we can't let them take the people for the slave trade. If you can distract them, I'll get the people out of here," Jamie directed and Jack beamed at him for taking charge of the situation so quickly.

 

"Sounds good, kiddo. I'm on it," Jack replied and dashed off to the other side of the village to create a diversion.

 

Sure that Jack would be able to keep the pirates busy, Jamie quietly approached the villagers that were huddled together. They were mostly women and children. He wasn't sure where all the men had gone, but maybe Jack would find them. For now, he had to take the chance to get these people to safety.

 

“Hello, my name is James Tyler. I'm here to rescue you. I need everyone to be extremely quiet while we evacuate into the forest. They'll probably take some things, but once they're gone, you can all come back, safe and sound,” Jamie explained.

 

Everyone nodded their agreement, just happy that they wouldn't be taken prisoner, and began to quietly head towards the forest. Being from the area, they knew the forests far better than the pirates and would easily be able to hide there. Jamie noticed a little girl of about 4, who wasn't moving with the others.

 

“Hello, what's your name?” Jamie asked her as he leaned down to her height.

 

“Lorna,” she replied shyly.

 

“Ok, Lorna, run!” he whispered as he took her hand and tugged her along to follow the others.

 

Once the villagers were safely hiding in the forest, Jamie went back to find his Uncle Jack. Who had, unsurprisingly, gotten himself captured. He was currently tied up with the young men from the village and it seemed that it would be up to Jamie to save all of them.

 

There was only one guard keeping watch over the prisoners, while the rest of the pirates were searching the houses for valuables. Jamie pulled out his sonic and switched it to a setting that would release Jack and the others. He approached carefully and when the guard had looked away for a moment, Jamie walked up behind him. He tossed his sonic over to Jack and tapped the guard on the shoulder.

 

Daring the man to chase after him with a smug grin, Jamie ran just fast enough to keep out of the man's reach, but slowly enough that he wouldn't lose him so fast that he gave up and went back before Jack could get everyone out. After about ten minutes of leading the man on a merry chase, he heard Jack whistle loudly and easily lost the pirate in the thick foliage.

 

Following the direction of Jack's whistle, Jamie found the villagers easily. 

 

Jack scooped him up in a hug and laughed heartily. “You are incredible, Jamie. I don't think even your dad could have done that without getting himself caught,” Jack praised.

 

“Thanks. Is everyone here? Are we missing anyone?” Jamie asked the villagers.

 

Everyone confirmed that their family members were accounted for. While the pirates didn't look happy upon leaving, they did leave with minimal damage to the village properties. The people were safe and the possessions could be replaced.

 

Jack and Jamie were invited to stay for a while and threw a huge party in their honour. This was a start for Jamie. He felt a shift in the timelines today that charted his own course, his own destiny outside of the shadows of his parents. He loved them dearly, but he didn't want to forever be known as the Doctor's son. He wanted to be James Tyler, special in his own right.

 

They enjoyed the hospitality of the village for two days, then went exploring down the river. They spent another week camping in the wilderness and exploring.

 

Their travels through time and space mostly followed the same routine. One trip led to another until they could find no more excuses to keep them from returning to Torchwood.

 

It was, in fact, about two years for Jamie and Jack before they made it back to Torchwood. Jamie was now ten years old and Jackie was none too pleased with how long they were away, even if it had only been a couple of days for them.

 

They managed to stay for about a month after that trip. During that time, Jamie discovered the creatures that Torchwood had nicknamed Weevils. They had been falling through the rift from time to time and were quite hostile to humans. Fortunately, Jamie knew what planet they actually came from. Both the planet and the species were completely unpronounceable to humans (consisting mostly of grunts and groans). He came up with a plan to return them home safely rather than locking them in the cells.

 

Jamie made a cage-like chamber where the Weevils could be safely placed and hooked Jack's vortex manipulator up to it, so that whatever was in the chamber would be teleported. No one needed to go with them, nor would they lose the manipulator. 

 

Once the last of them had been sent home, Jamie and Jack made one trip to the planet. They wanted to be sure that they had all made it safely home. The creatures were all extremely thankful to them and Jamie assured them that if any more were displaced, they would send them home as soon as possible.

 

Due to his age and refusal to even learn how to use a gun, Jamie was never allowed to go out with the team unless they needed him for a specific task. While Jamie resented it, the Torchwood team took their charge of caring for him very seriously. He spent most of his time identifying alien technology that fell through the rift and started collecting parts to make his own vortex manipulator.

 

All of this sitting around was grating on his nerves. Jamie decided that there was something more useful that he could be doing with his time. And they could always call him back home if he were needed anyway. Steeling himself for the discussion, he approached his uncle carefully.

 

“Uncle Jack, I think I'd like to go to Luna University. I could get a few degrees and you could always call me if you needed something,” Jamie suggested.

 

“Sounds like a good idea. Have you spoken to your parents at all about this?” Jack asked him.

 

“Well, no ... not exactly. I haven't actually called mum since I left the TARDIS,” Jamie admitted and studied his trainers rather intently.

 

“Jamie! It's been two years for you and you haven't called your parents at all?” Jack cried, knowing that Rose would be terribly upset about this.

 

“Sorry,” Jamie mumbled.

 

“Look, I think it's a great idea. But you really need to call your parents. Both to talk to them about regular stuff and about the idea of university,” Jack told him firmly and Jamie nodded his agreement.

 

When Rose answered the call, they were on a beach in Rio, trying to cheer up Amy. Rose explained to Jamie what was happening with the cracks, how people were forgetting huge events and what had happened to Rory as well. She was a little bit unsure about her ten year old son going to University, but the Doctor thought it was a fabulous idea.

 

His parents made all the arrangements for him at Luna University and even picked him up in the TARDIS for the trip. Jamie was happy to see them, as it had been a very long couple of years. He showed his dad the progress he was making on putting together his own vortex manipulator and the Doctor gave him a few of the parts he was missing to keep working on it.

 

Jack visited him from time to time and he even had a few visits from River that surprised him. She showed him around the campus and took him to lunch occasionally. 

 

“How are you enjoying your little vacation from the TARDIS?” River asked him over lunch one day.

 

“I miss it, obviously. Who wouldn't miss that, but I feel more like my own person now than I ever did before. Even being here, away from Jack and my grandparents, makes me feel more independent,” Jamie told her.

 

“I know exactly what you mean. It would be wonderful if you could grow your own TARDIS instead of just building a vortex manipulator. Wouldn't it?” River suggested.

 

“Yeah. But they take centuries to grow. I doubt that would ever be possible,” Jamie sighed.

 

“Oh, I don't know, your family is pretty famous for doing the impossible,” she told him with a wink.

 

Jamie's hearts skipped a beat at the thought. He knew that River was somehow involved in his family's future. What if she was hinting at this now so that they could start growing a TARDIS for him? What if it could be ready sooner than he expected it might?

 

“Who are you, River? Can you tell me anything?” Jamie asked her.

 

“Oh, James. I wish I could tell you. I really do, but I can't. Not yet,” she told him sadly.

 

“Well, I am sure that you are a good friend, River. Thank you for visiting me while I'm here. I don't want to interrupt mum and dad's trips with boring visits. And Uncle Jack is busy at Torchwood, I know,” Jamie said assuredly and squeezed her hand.

 

River looked at him with slightly moist eyes. It seemed as though she was nearly ripped in two at wanting to tell him more, but knowing that she couldn't. She sounded slightly choked up when she told him simply, “Soon, James.”

 

Six years later, he was graduating with doctorate degrees in several sciences. The TARDIS arrived with his parents, grandparents, Amy, Jack, Donna and the rest of the Torchwood team. Jamie even noticed River at the back of the room. 

 

After six years of standing still in University, Jamie needed to get away for a bit before returning to Torchwood. He was happily surprised when River Song volunteered to go with him. This would prove to be an interesting adventure.

 

 


	25. River and James

Chapter Twenty-five – River and James

 

“So, River, where shall we go first?” Jamie asked the woman next to him.

 

“I know just the place,” she replied with a smirk.

 

She placed his hand over her Vortex Manipulator and sent them off to coordinates she had already set before he even asked. They materialized in the middle of a busy street that was very familiar to Jamie. He had been here hundreds of times.

 

“Barcelona? Why here?” he wondered, sounding slightly disappointed.

 

“Walk with me, James?” River suggested and offered him her hand.

 

He looked at her curiously for a moment before accepting the invitation and clasped her hand, allowing himself to be led down the street towards the marketplace. They walked in silence for a while before River turned down a side street toward a large plaza with a grand fountain. She sat down on the edge of the fountain and dipped her fingers playfully in the water as she waited for him to join her. With a shrug, he sat next to her.

 

“This was the first place you brought me when I met you. It was a very difficult and confusing time for me and you brought me here. I wasn't even sure who I was anymore, James. You helped me to find myself,” River told him as she stared into the flowing water of the fountain. Her smile was small, but she seemed to be reminiscing over happy memories.

 

“Why do you call me James? I asked you once and you said that I told you to call me that,” he questioned. She seemed to be ready to finally tell him some things about herself and her relationship to his family perhaps, so he wanted to make sure that he got all the important parts covered.

 

“You've been on a journey the last few years. A journey to discover yourself, apart from your parents. They'll probably always call you Jamie, even when you're centuries old. It's cute and it's because they love you, but you'll always be their little boy. You told me that the fact that I had always called you James, even as a little boy, made you feel grown up and important. I respect that,” River explained, her blue eyes meeting his for the first time since they had arrived.

 

“Thank you,” he whispered and considered the best way to ask his next question. “Who are you, River? What can you tell me?”

 

“I'm...” she began, but her throat suddenly closed as her eyes filled with tears. River took a shuddering breath and clasped both of his hands in her own as she leaned closer and whispered in his ear.

 

Jamie's eyes grew wide as he heard her say his name, but this time, it wasn't James. He knew exactly what this meant. Only one person would ever know this name aside from his own parents. River was his wife. He didn't know what to do. He was sixteen! The first time that he had met her, he was only eight, and somehow, his father had met her before he was even born. He stared at her in shock, his mouth gaping as he tried to process this revelation.

 

“It's alright, James. Plenty of time for all that. Right now, let's go find some trouble,” River said reassuringly and pulled him along behind her as she ran back towards the marketplace.

 

Their travels were much like the adventures that his parents had always taken. They saved people, got arrested here and there, almost died too many times to count, but it always worked out in the end. Despite his knowledge of who she would be to him in his future and her past, their relationship for the moment never went further than friendly hugs and one or two chaste kisses.

 

One day, James had the urge to see what his parents were up to. He had managed to create a setting on his Vortex Manipulator that would lock onto the TARDIS. He and River decided to give it a try. Upon activating it, they found themselves just outside of the TARDIS, in a very dark, damp room.

 

“Well, this is cheery. I wonder what trouble they've landed themselves into this time?” Jamie commented as he took in their surroundings.

 

“It feels like we're on some kind of sailing ship,” River added, as she felt the floor sway slightly.

 

They were about to go in search of James' parents, when the TARDIS started sounding like it was dematerializing, but something was wrong. James was about to try the door when the Doctor and a man that looked rather like a pirate ran out of the doors. The Doctor stumbled slightly as James caught him.

 

“Dad! Are you alright? What's going on?” he questioned and they both stared as the TARDIS disappeared surrounded by a slight greenish haze.

 

“Ok... ok. Ok, TARDIS runs off on its own. That's a bit of a new one,” the Doctor mumbled as he tried to slow his racing hearts. He suddenly realized whose arms were holding him up. “Jamie! What are you doing here?”

 

“We're just travelling. I decided to lock onto the TARDIS to join you for a visit,” James told him.

 

“Of course! Vortex Manipulator! Is it still working? The TARDIS couldn't get a lock on the temporal plane, then threw a bit of a tantrum and now we're stranded,” the Doctor explained, hopeful that his son may have just brought their ticket out of here.

 

Both James and River checked their Manipulators, but looked at each other knowingly when they found both of them dead. “Afraid not, dad,” he informed him.

 

The Doctor slumped as he said, “Bang goes our only hope of getting them out of here.”

 

“Not much of a Captain without a ship, are you?” the other man taunted.

 

“And you are?” River asked, feeling that she had remained silent long enough.

 

“Captain Avery. Just what we need, more people waiting to die,” he told her sarcastically and pushed his way past them towards the door.

 

They were heading back towards the room where the others were hiding, when one of the crew suddenly faced them with two pistols in his hands. There were several bags of supplies slung over his shoulder and a gold crown was looped around his arm.

 

“Mulligan! What are you doing? This is mutiny,” Captain Avery shouted.

 

“She doesn't want me. She only wants Toby and the scrawny looking fellow,” the man replied, sounding half crazed as he ran through the group of them.

 

“He's got the last of the supplies. We should go after him,” the Doctor told them.

 

“Never mind the damned supplies. What about my treasure?” the Captain growled and stalked after the man he had called Mulligan.

 

“Nice to know where your priorities are,” James muttered.

 

They found themselves suddenly under fire as Mulligan began shooting at them.

 

“Don't get injured! Don't get injured!” the Doctor shouted.

 

“Wasn't planning on it, dad. But you seem a little more worried about that then usual,” James shouted back as he ducked behind some crates, pulling River down with him.

 

Everything seemed to freeze when they heard an eerie sounding voice singing wordlessly all around them. The Doctor checked himself over, then quickly moved to check James and River. The Captain pointed towards the bottom of the door where Mulligan had locked himself after firing on them. A green light shone between the boards.

 

“She's inside,” the Doctor said softly.

 

“She's come for Mulligan,” the Captain added.

 

“Who? Who's come for him?” River asked insistently, hoping that someone would bring them up to speed on the current crisis soon. Preferably before they got themselves into trouble.

 

They heard Mulligan scream from behind the door. Silence hung over them for a moment before Avery broke through the door to retrieve what had been taken.

 

“There's a Siren of some kind. Whenever anyone gets injured, their hand gets marked with a black spot, then she comes along and takes them. So, don't get injured,” the Doctor finally explained, then joined Avery in the storage room to investigate.

 

“Ok, we definitely picked a bad time for a visit, eh dad?” James responded worriedly.

 

“Might be a bit unfortunate, yeah. Although we could probably use your help,” his father replied distractedly. 

 

“No water in here. How did she take him? You said she uses water like a door, that's how she enters a room,” the Captain said and picked up the crown that Mulligan had been carrying on his arm.

 

“I was wrong. Please ignore all my theories up to this point,” the Doctor told them, staring at the gold crown.

 

“What, again?” Captain Avery scoffed.

 

“Sounds about right,” James sighed, earning himself a chastising look from his father.

 

“We're all in danger. The water's not how she's getting in. When we were down in the hold, think what happened. You, me, Rose, Amy, Rory, leeches,” the Doctor started rambling.

 

“Rory? You told me Rory was dead!” James interrupted.

 

“What? Oh, that was a long time ago. When are you?” his father questioned, not sure how much he would need to censor himself and the others as they seemed to be out of order.

 

“I just graduated,” he replied.

 

“Ah, got it. So, remember Captain, you, me, Rose, Amy, Rory, leeches...” the Doctor continued as if he were never interrupted.

 

“She sprang from the water,” Avery announced.

 

“Yes, only when it grew still. Still water. Nature's mirror,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Reflections? This Siren is coming in through reflections, like in mirrors?” River deduced.

 

“Yes. The siren legend. The curse,” the Doctor said as he paced the room.

 

“You said curses weren't real,” Avery accused.

 

“Yeah, and neither are legends or fairy tales, but a lot of them seem to be true as well,” James commented and rubbed the back of his neck in a manner similar to his father's past incarnation.

 

“Folklore springs from truth. She attacks ships filled with treasure. Where else do you get a perfect reflection?” the Doctor told them, trying to get the discussion back to the matter at hand rather than them having a go at him.

 

“Polished metal,” Avery realized.

 

The Doctor hummed his agreement and left the crown behind in the storage room as they all ran back to the room where the others were hiding. When they reached the door, the Doctor began pounding on it immediately, shouting, “Rose! Amy! Open the door!”

 

As soon as they gained access to the room, the Doctor grabbed a silver medallion from a young boy's neck and began breathing on it, in the hopes that he would cloud any reflections and protect them.

 

“You know, dad, you could probably just chuck it outside,” James told him, getting the attention of the others in the room.

 

“Jamie! Oh my god!” Rose shouted and immediately wrapped her arms around him.

 

The Doctor did as Jamie suggested then, and threw the medallion out the small window at the top of the wall. “Be careful what you all say please. Jamie is a smidge out of order with us,” the Doctor warned. “Now, Captain, you and I need to go get rid of some more reflections,” he added and dragged the Captain out of the room.

 

“Amy, Rory, Rose, good to see you all again,” River greeted them with a smile.

 

“You knew that Rory wasn't dead? Sorry, how are you alive?” James questioned looking between River and the man he had been told was swallowed by light from a crack at the end of the universe.

 

“But, you were there, Jamie? What's going on?” Rory asked, still not catching on.

 

“Jamie, when are you?” Rose insisted.

 

James sighed and rolled his eyes, frustrated that no one would tell him how Rory had apparently returned from the dead. “I just graduated,” he grumbled.

 

“Right. Ok, both of you, mention nothing to Jamie that has happened since the Pandorica. We're out of order and those things haven't happened to him yet. We cannot talk about them or we risk creating a paradox and destroying the universe,” Rose explained.

 

“It wouldn't...” James began but was quickly cut off by a motion from his mother.

 

“You don't know what happened yet. So you don't know if it would or not. We're not talking about it,” Rose insisted.

 

“Trust your mother on this one, dear. It really was one hell of a ride,” River assured him with a smirk.

 

James sighed and resigned himself to being the earliest in the timeline out of all of them. “I'm glad you're alright, Rory,” James grumbled. He sat in the corner as he considered all of the information his father had shared about the current predicament so far.

 

When the Doctor returned, he informed them that they would just have to wait for now. They had removed everything from the ship that might create a reflection and allow the Siren access to them. Rory and Toby had both been marked with a black spot, therefore had to stay hidden inside. They were going to wait for the wind to pick up so the ship could move away from here.

 

Amy and Rory were asleep on the floor. His parents had gone up on deck to look at the stars. Captain Avery and his son, Toby, were huddled in the corner talking. James knew that River had been meeting them out of order for a long time and decided to ask her, “Is it difficult, keeping track of what everyone knows when you meet out of order?”

 

River smiled and pulled out her diary. “It can be. That's why we have these. I know you keep one,” she told him.

 

“I started when I went to the University. You told us that we should and it seemed like a good idea while I was there. Added in stuff about what happened when we met you before I started writing in it,” James admitted.

 

“I've been out of order with everyone my whole life. I guess I'm just used to it. But you were the one who taught me how important it was to maintain the timelines properly. We spent a lot of time together just after I met you,” River explained.

 

“I'm so glad I met you,” James mumbled and fell asleep with his head on her shoulder.

 

“Me too,” she whispered with a smile and joined him for a snooze.

 

They were awoken suddenly by the sound of thunder and the Doctor shouting, “Man the sails!”

 

They leapt to their feet instantly and joined the others in trying to set the sails. They were all struggling with the various ropes as the Captain shouted nonsense at them. The Doctor was at the wheel, trying to turn the ship. James noticed Toby carrying a large bundle of cloth towards his father when the crown from earlier fell out and rolled along the deck. Despite the driving rain and restless waves, they heard the sound of the Siren returning.

 

A flash of green light revealed a glowing woman with dark hair, singing sweetly as she approached Toby. The boy looked at her awestruck and reached to take her hand as his father shouted behind him, “Don't let her take you!”

 

As their hands touched, Toby disappeared in a puff of smoke. Avery began to sob and apologize to the last place his son stood. The Doctor grabbed the crown from the deck of the ship and threw it overboard angrily.

 

“You couldn't give up the gold, could you? That's why you turned pirate. Your commission, your wife, your son. Just how much is that treasure worth to you, man?” the Doctor shouted at the distraught Captain.

 

“Doctor!” Rose chastised, sure that the man was suffering enough. She pulled him away and hugged him fiercely.

 

They were all shocked when the wind shifted and one of the beams swung violently. It collided with Rory and threw him overboard into the rough waves.

 

“Rory! Rory! I can't see him. Doctor? I'm going in,” Amy shouted and began to peel the heavy wool coat off of her shoulders.

 

The Doctor and Rose both ran to hold her back from jumping into the ocean. “He's drowning. He's drowning! You go in after him, you'll drown too. There's only one thing that can save him now,” the Doctor insisted.

 

“What are you talking about?” Amy cried as she struggled against the arms holding her on the ship.

 

“The Siren. She wants him. We have to release her,” the Doctor told them. He opened one of the water barrels. As soon as she appeared, he shouted to her, “He's drowning. Go and find him!”

 

At that command, she dove into the water and a green light glowed beneath the waves.

 

“Alright, dad. I know you had a reason for that. Now explain,” James insisted.

 

“That thing isn't just a ravenous hunter. It's intelligent. We can reason with it. And maybe, just maybe, they're still alive somewhere. We have to follow,” the Doctor explained.

 

“You think it's just teleporting them somewhere?” Rose reasoned.

 

“Are you mad?” Avery shouted indignantly.

 

“If we ever want to see them again, we have to let the Siren take us. We'll prick our fingers. All agreed? Yeah?” the Doctor prompted and at everyone's acknowledgement, he used a sharp piece of metal from nearby to jab everyone's hands.

 

The Siren appeared and the next thing that they knew, they were awakening on the floor of a spaceship.

 

“Where are we?” Amy grumbled as she pushed herself up off the metal floor.

 

“We haven't moved. We're in exactly the same place as before,” the Doctor told them as he looked out of the window in front of them onto the deck of Captain Avery's ship.

 

“We're on a ghost ship,” Avery whispered in fear.

 

“No. It's a real spaceship. It must be trapped in a temporal rift. Out of phase with our reality, but trapped, just like your ship, Captain,” James explained.

 

“Good explanation, Jamie. Much less wibbly-wobbly than the one I was going to give. So, all the reflections have suddenly become gateways,” the Doctor told them as he threw a chunk of metal from where they were standing through the window.

 

The glass however, didn't shatter. It warped slightly as the metal passed through and landed onto the deck of the ship. “Ever look in a mirror and think you're seeing a whole other world? Well, this time it's not an illusion,” the Doctor told them.

 

They heard the beeping of the distress call that had originally led the TARDIS here and decided to find the bridge of the ship. They ran into a few dead aliens along the way, but eventually found the main computers.

 

“I don't understand. If this is the Captain, then what's the Siren?” Amy asked.

 

“Apparently not the one controlling the ship,” Rose commented.

 

“Same as us. A stowaway,” the Doctor reasoned and scanned the deceased alien in front of him to see what caused his death.

 

“She killed it?” Amy asked.

 

“Human bacteria,” the Doctor informed them as he checked the readings on his sonic.

 

“What?” Amy gasped.

 

“A virus from our planet. Airborne, travelling through the portal. That's what killed it,” the Doctor explained and Rose pulled him back from the body before he touched it.

 

“Wait a minute. If the Siren comes from here, but didn't kill them, then what is she?” James wondered. A stowaway didn't seem right.

 

“Come on, let's find out,” River prompted and led them all to continue searching the ship.

 

They eventually found a room that had a dozen or so people lying unconscious on floating beds. The Captain recognized the men as his crew that had gone missing, then found his son. “Toby!” he shouted and ran to check on him. Rose followed and established that the boy was still alive.

 

“Rory!” Amy cried and ran to his side.

 

“The TARDIS!” the Doctor exclaimed and nearly collapsed in relief against her doors.

 

“We have to get them out of here,” Avery insisted as he tried to find a way to disconnect his son from the machinery attached to him.

 

“Wait. His fever's gone,” the Doctor noticed. “She's keeping him alive. His brain is still active, but all its cellular activity is suspended. It's not a curse, it's a tissue sample. Why get samples of people you are about to kill?” the Doctor wondered as he noticed a circular patch of skin next to each patient, matching the black spot on their hands.

 

“What if... Doctor, what if she was never trying to kill them? Think about it, yeah? She takes people who are injured. What if it's like nanogenes?” Rose suggested.

 

“Oh, Rose! You are absolutely brilliant!!” the Doctor cried and swept her into a spinning hug.

 

Amy had been trying to disconnect Rory and the monitors next to him began to beep loudly as he started to wake up, groaning in pain. They heard the singing begin and all of them ran to hide before the Siren appeared. She held a hand over Rory's chest and he calmed instantly.

 

“Anaesthetic,” the Doctor gasped in sudden understanding.

 

“What?” Avery wondered.

 

“The music. The song. So she anaesthetizes people and puts their body in stasis so that she can treat them,” the Doctor realized. 

 

“You mean she's some kind of automated doctor program?” James asked.

 

“Yes. Exactly. Rose had it bang on. This is an automated sick bay. It's teleporting everyone on board. The crew are dead, and so the sick bay has had nothing to do. It's been looking after humanity whilst it's been idle. Look at her, a virtual doctor able to sterilize a whole room,” the Doctor said in awe as he led them all out of hiding and towards the Siren.

 

The green woman stared at them warily as she watched over her patients. Amy went straight to Rory's side and tried to free him again. The Siren's face turned red as she scowled angrily at her.

 

“She won't let us take them,” Amy announced tensely.

 

“It's not her fault. She's just a computer. We just have to figure out how to communicate with her properly. There are certain constants to medical care throughout the universe,” Rose reassured her.

 

“She's keeping them alive, but she doesn't know how to heal them,” the Doctor told her.

 

“I'm his wife, for god's sake. Why can't I touch him?” Amy argued, her voice sounding choked with pain.

 

“Tell her, Amy. Show her your ring. She may be virtual but she's intelligent. You can't do anything without her consent. Come on, sophisticated girl like you. That must be somewhere in your core program,” the Doctor urged as he showed the Siren the matching wedding bands on Amy and Rory's fingers.

 

James and River stood slightly away from the emotional moment. Not sure how they could help as there seemed to be more than enough people involved for the moment.

 

“Is there anything the we can do?” James whispered.

 

“Don't worry about it. They'll take care of this,” River assured him.

 

“You seem very confident of that,” James commented with a knowing look.

 

River smirked and whispered, “Spoilers.”

 

Their Vortex Manipulators were working again. When his parents left Amy and Rory to talk, the Doctor joined Avery to check on Toby while Rose walked over to them.

 

“We're going to go now, mum. I'm not sure how this turns out, but you don't need us here,” James told her.

 

“Alright. Call us soon, love,” she sighed and gave him a hug. “And you two take care of each other.”

 

“Count on it, Rose,” River assured her and gave Rose a hug as well.

 

It was likely a surprise to the others that they had left before everything was settled, but James knew his mother would explain. They hadn't been much help during that adventure, but it was just another sign for James that his path of saving the universe didn't run completely parallel with that of his family.

 

After two years of adventuring, River told him that she needed to get back to Stormcage.

 

“Why are you there? I mean, obviously they can't really keep you there or you wouldn't have been here with me all this time,” James asked her as he crossed his arms over his chest.

 

“That is one thing that I can't tell you yet. But it's important that people believe that I committed the crime they think I did,” she told him.

 

“Alright. I'll accept that for now. When will I see you again, River?” James asked his future wife.

 

“Very soon for you. Right now, you need to get back to Torchwood. They're going to need you,” she informed him. She had already lived it, of course, and knew just how important he would be during the coming crisis.

 

“Thank you, River. For everything you've done for me. Not just the last couple of years, but in University too. I'm sure you must have heard this from me before, but it's a first for me. I love you, River,” James admitted and took her face in his hands to kiss her properly.

 

Tears fell from River's eyes as she realized that this might be the last time for her that she would hear those words. She never knew for sure, her timeline wasn't exactly back to front with him, things got mixed up along the way, but it was very possible that this was reaching the end. River wrapped her arms around James' neck and kissed him back with all the love that she felt for this young man. 

 

His telepathic link to her wasn't formed yet on his side, so she couldn't connect with him properly, but he was still telepathic and with the close physical contact, she gave it a try. River sent him a wave of love, understanding and support that nearly drowned him despite the lack of a full connection. With a gasp, he broke the kiss and looked into her tear-filled eyes.

 

“Thank you,” he whispered. He placed his fingers on her temples. He knew it wasn't time to make the link between them, but he wanted to say this straight into her mind, _“Until we meet again, my love.”_

 

Without another word, they each set their Vortex Manipulators to their destinations. With one final longing glance, and two bright flashes of light, they disappeared from the fountain on Barcelona that had marked both the beginning and end of this part of their story. But there was much more to come.

 

 


	26. Children of Earth: Part One

Chapter Twenty-Six – Children of Earth

 

James was trying to settle back into some kind of routine at Torchwood, but what had been years for him, had been no time at all for them. He sat at one of the computer terminals, studying the latest readings from the rift, when his grandmother loudly entered the Hub.

 

“Honestly, he was born three years ago and suddenly he's a bleedin' adult! I never got to spoil my grandbaby!” Jackie wailed. 

 

James noticed that even Donna was wincing at her tone, and the two of them usually got along very well. She glanced at him with a pitying look as they both tried to get back to work.

 

“And that mother of yours, she never calls either. Honestly, they live inside a bloody phone box. You'd think she could use it now and then to call her own mother,” Jackie continued despite the fact that no one was listening.

 

They were all saved by the arrival of Pete, Jack and Ianto reentering the Hub. They had gone to the hospital to retrieve an alien hitchhiker that had been living inside a man who had died. Pete immediately went to work trying to remove his wife from the premises so that they could get back to work uninterrupted.

 

“Sweetheart, you can't be here. We have important work to do,” he argued and ushered her back towards the lift. She whined the whole way, but he eventually managed to send her off.

 

James slumped in his chair and rested his head on the desk. “Why didn't I just go back to travelling with mum and dad?” he mumbled to himself.

 

“Because you are an independent and extremely capable young man, who doesn't need to spend all his time with his parents,” Donna said reassuringly as she pat him on the back.

 

“And it's so much better to be stuck here with my grandparents?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “Honestly, Donna, you know how much better it is on the TARDIS. What am I doing here? They never let me out on a call because nobody thinks I can take care of myself. I've been doing this kind of thing my whole life!”

 

“So, why aren't you on the TARDIS then?” she asked him pointedly.

 

James sighed. Because it somehow felt like he was giving up on being his own person. He had spent all this time away so that he could become the man he was today. Educated, independent, confident, and not living in the shadow of his father. But somehow, going back felt like turning in his grownup card.

 

“I don't know,” he answered.

 

They both went back to typing when suddenly, James winced in pain. A horrible buzzing sound assaulted his telepathic senses, nearly crippling his ability to think. The mental static overwhelmed all of his other senses, making him blind to the outside world for a full minute before it stopped. When he opened his eyes again, he found Donna, Jack and Ianto all around him with concerned looks on their faces.

 

“What happened?” Jack asked him, ready to face the next danger.

 

“I'm not sure. Some kind of telepathic broadcast, but it was like static. No actual message came through,” James replied as he shook his head clear of the event.

 

“Donna, check if anyone else noticed it. Ianto, check the readings on the rift. Jamie, let's run a medical scanner over you, just to make sure there's no lasting effects,” Jack ordered and everyone got to work on their assigned tasks.

 

James rolled his eyes at once again being babied by the staff at Torchwood. Despite all of his time spent proving himself to his Uncle Jack, the man was still incredibly overprotective of him. He followed Jack down into the medical area slowly, knowing that there was nothing wrong.

 

“I've already checked myself, Jack. I'm extremely aware of my own physical condition, you know,” James protested, but sank down to sit on the examination table in the middle of the space.

 

They heard Gwen enter the hub and shout something to Donna, but didn't quite make out what it was.

 

“Everything looks normal,” Jack said as he ran the alien device over James.

 

“Told you. Can I get back to doing something useful now?” he complained.

 

Jack sighed, but let him go. James went back to his computer station and looked over to see what Gwen and Donna were doing.

 

“Check the news reports, anything to do with children,” Gwen insisted.

 

“What am I looking for exactly?” Donna questioned.

 

“I dunno. I just saw these kids outside just stop, like they were frozen or something,” Gwen told them.

 

“When was this?” James asked.

 

“About eight forty. I was just getting some cash from the machine and saw it myself,” Gwen replied.

 

“Here we go then, seventeen traffic accidents happening right across the country. All between eight forty and eight forty-one, and every single accident was involving children standing in the middle of the road,” Donna reported.

 

“That's when the telepathic broadcast happened. Why would human children be picking up a telepathic broadcast?” James wondered and started checking all of the readings coming in from the various sensors they had in the area.

 

“Same reports from France. Fifteen road traffic accidents. All timed around nine forty. They're an hour ahead, so it was simultaneous,” Ianto called over to them.

 

“All involving children?” Gwen asked.

 

James knew this was no coincidence and immediately started running the same type of search, but was able to correlate the data far faster than the rest of them. “It's everywhere. The whole world. Somehow, children all over the world, at the exact same moment, received the same telepathic signal that I did. I've got to see if there's a ship in orbit,” James told them.

 

“Should we call the Doctor?” Pete suggested as he joined the group around the computers.

 

“No. We can handle this,” James replied curtly.

 

The rest of the Torchwood team exchanged a look, but didn't argue. 

 

“Alright, I'm going to call UNIT and see what they've got. Let me know if you guys find out anything more,” Jack told them and walked away, already dialling his mobile.

 

The whole team spent the next half hour scouring the media, their own scanners and any hacked satellite data they could find. They couldn't seem to find any more information than they had already deduced. In fact, no one but Jamie had any knowledge of the telepathic nature of the attack.

 

“Who's that?” James questioned when he saw someone snooping around outside on their surveillance cameras.

 

“You're right, Jack. He's back,” Ianto called when he saw what James was looking at.

 

“Ha, ha! I said so!” Jack crowed triumphantly.

 

“Alright, Jumpin' Jack Flash, who is he?” Donna demanded.

 

“A doctor. What's he doing?” Jack asked as he joined Ianto and Jamie at the monitor.

 

“Waiting, just like you said. Looking back at the footage, he's been there twenty minutes,” Ianto replied.

 

“Persistent,” Jack said.

 

“Good sign,” Ianto replied.

 

“Dogmatic,” Jack added.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's enough, you two. What's he doing here?” Donna interrupted their banter.

 

“Never work with a couple! You two talk like twins,” Gwen complained.

 

With a sigh, Jack explained, “He's Rupesh Patanjali. He saw the hitchhiker and we need a doctor.”

 

“What and you just let him follow you?” Gwen asked incredulously.

 

“Don't look at credentials or anything?” Donna rolled her eyes.

 

“Well we can't exactly put out an ad in the paper, Donna,” Jack responded.

 

“Oh. You bastards. That's exactly what you did to me the first time we met. Well, sod that. I'm promoting myself to recruitment officer. Wanna join me, Donna?” Gwen announced to the team.

 

“Why not? Between the two of us, maybe we can manage an effective interview,” Donna replied and followed Gwen to the lift.

 

Once they were gone, Ianto turned to Jack with a smile. “Gwen's calling us a couple now,” he said to Jack flirtatiously.

 

“What's your problem?” Jack grumbled.

 

“Just saying,” Ianto responded, confused by Jack's attitude all of a sudden.

 

“I hate the word couple,” Jack told him curtly as he stalked off to his office.

 

“Me too,” Ianto said quietly to himself.

 

“Are you alright, Ianto?” James asked and it was clear that Ianto had forgotten that he was there.

 

“Yes. Yes, of course,” he answered a little too quickly. “Could I get you some coffee or something?”

 

“Don't take it personally, Ianto. My dad did that to my mum for a long time too. He's had to watch a lot of people age in front of him. It hurts to think about it. But sometimes, even for those of us that will live for centuries or more, we manage to take the time to enjoy what is here for now,” James told him.

 

“Thank you, Jamie. I'm sure he'd say you're too young to understand. But I appreciate it. What made your dad give in?” Ianto wondered.

 

“I don't know for sure. They say that it was impossible to ignore it anymore or something like that. The bit I've been told about relationships is that communication is important, so I'd say talk to him, if he'll let you,” James suggested. 

 

Suddenly, James slammed his eyes shut as the pain of the telepathic assault returned. This time however, it wasn't silent static. The message came first as a screaming tone in his head, then a phrase coming through, one word added at a time, almost like it was testing the connection. First it was, “We,” repeated over and over. Then, “We are.” Finally and ominously, “We are coming.”

 

When James finally managed to open his eyes again, he saw not only Ianto, but Pete and Jack standing over him where he sat at his desk.

 

“It happened again,” James told them, shaking his head to clear it.

 

“We know. Gwen and Donna saw it outside. All the kids repeating the same words,” Jack informed him.

 

“We are coming,” Jamie said, informing them that he had heard the message as well. “The question is, who?” he added as he began typing furiously on his keyboard. “I was running the scanners, prepared for another telepathic broadcast. I should be able to track the signal or at least find out what frequency they're using,” James told them.

 

“Alright, I'm gonna try calling the Home Office. UNIT wasn't much help earlier, but you might want to try and get through to someone higher up, Jamie, what with your connections over there,” Jack said and headed back towards his office for a bit of privacy while on the phone.

 

Gwen and Donna reentered the Hub from the lift then, the large, circular door spinning out of their way. Gwen ran up to her computer station as Donna wheeled her way up the ramps that they had installed around the place when she started working there.

 

“That was bloody freaky!” Donna announced loudly.

 

“I know, people are going to start panicking, now,” Gwen added.

 

“I'm trying to track the signal, but this is going to take a while to run. Better try to get through to UNIT as Jack suggested, I suppose,” James told them with a sigh and picked up his phone. He hated this sort of thing, but maybe he could skip a few levels of bureaucracy by throwing around his dad's name a bit.

 

“Bloody idiots!” Donna shouted suddenly.

 

“We're being dumbos. We're missing the bleedin' obvious here!” Gwen agreed.

 

Jack, Ianto, and Pete joined them at the computers to look over their shoulders. James looked over as well, but kept his ear to his phone. He was currently on hold, waiting for someone that might be able to put him through to Lethbridge-Stewart.

 

“This, oh fearless leader, was recorded in Taiwan,” Donna said to Jack as she started playing a video for him. The little girl was repeating the same phrase they had been hearing all morning.

 

Gwen looked at them pointedly before Jack and Ianto answered together, “It's English.”

 

“Oh my god, you're right,” Pete gasped.

 

“Of course it's in English. I told you that the broadcast is going around the world. The original signal is in English, so what else would they say?” James said, rolling his eyes.

 

“So why is it in English?” Donna questioned. “And, if it's all the children, other than the Martian over there, what about him?” she added as she cued up another video showing an elderly gentleman, frozen and intoning the same phrase the children had been.

 

“What the hell? Who's he?” Jack demanded.

 

“Name's Timothy White. He's a patient in a psychiatric ward at the Duke of York Hospital, East Grinstead,” Gwen read off the report Donna had brought up.

 

“Ok, so that's what, two hours away?” Jack asked.

 

“I'm on it,” Gwen told them and dashed for the lift with a printout of the information from Donna.

 

“Right, keep following up on your leads, I have to go check on something myself,” Jack told them before grabbing his overcoat and heading out. Ianto followed, but no one knew where either of them were heading.

 

James was still trying to get through to someone at UNIT and was about to give up and call Buckingham Palace. He'd had tea with the Queen when he was younger and was sure that she would help get him through to someone important if he asked. In the meantime, he tried to work his way through to talk to someone that could give him some kind of information.

 

It was three hours later when Gwen called to give some information to Donna. Ianto returned around the same time and admitted to having his car stolen while he was out.

 

“How in the world? It's got a triple deadlock, Ianto!” Pete shouted.

 

“I have no bloody idea. A bunch of ruddy kids near my sister's,” he grumbled.

 

“Ok, boys. Based on what Gwen found out from Timothy White, I've got the Holly Tree. In 1965, it was a state-run orphanage where our friend, also known as Clement MacDonald was taken into care after his mother died. In November 1965, he and several other children were transferred,” Donna told them.

 

“Does it say where they were sent?” Pete wondered.

 

“Nothing in official records,” Donna replied crossly.

 

“Let me see what I can dig up,” James told them and with a crack of his knuckles began to dig into restricted files.

 

Almost two hours later, Gwen returned to the Hub and went straight for the medical scanner. Donna, Pete, and Ianto exchanged a look and a shrug at her lack of conversation. When Jack returned, shortly after that, he had much more to say.

 

“We need damage control at Saint Helen's. One body, Doctor Rupesh Patanjali, shot in the back,” Jack ordered.

 

“What happened?” Ianto asked worriedly.

 

“I don't know. He was just left there right beside me, like someone's gloating,” Jack replied, the frustration clear in his tone.

 

“Did they kill you?” Ianto guessed.

 

“Yeah,” he admitted.

 

“What?! No way, seriously though? In the hospital?” Donna asked incredulously.

 

“Maybe we're being targeted. Whether it was him or me, we should be careful,” Jack speculated.

 

“I'm willing to bet it wasn't the nobody doctor that was the target, Jack,” James told him seriously. “I've got some results on the information we got from Gwen. Compiling it all now.”

 

“Is she back, yet?” Jack questioned.

 

“Yup. She's down in the lab,” Donna replied as she printed out all of the information that James was collecting.

 

Jack went to see what Gwen was doing and within a few minutes, he was shouting back to them, “Hey guys, we're having a baby!”

 

Everyone in the Hub gathered at the railing that led down into the medical area and saw Gwen with her hand on the scanner. She was almost in tears as she said, “That is so bloody spectacular. But what about this place, and my job?”

 

“We'll manage. Lots of help here now,” Jack told her reassuringly and placed his hand over hers on the scanner.

 

As soon as the scanner registered the new person, it activated and an alarm sounded, the lights flashing red throughout the Hub. On the display, a red dot appeared in the scan of Jack's abdomen.

 

“What the hell is that?” Gwen asked.

 

“Oh my god. It's a bomb,” Jack told them, his whole body stiffening in shock.

 

“Are you bloody kidding me?!” Donna shrieked.

 

“Get out! All of you! Right now!” Jack shouted and started pushing Gwen up the stairs.

 

James ran a quick scan with his sonic in Jack's direction. “Blast radius of one mile and there isn't time to get it out of you. I'm so sorry, Uncle Jack,” he reported.

 

“I'll survive. I always do. Now all of you get out of here!” Jack ordered.

 

Pete and Gwen were already helping Donna into the lift, despite the desperate looks of fear that Gwen was sending in Jack's direction. They trusted James' assessment that there wasn't time to get the bomb out of him.

 

The computer announced that a lockdown was in progress, but Ianto refused to leave, no matter how much James tried to pull him away.

 

“Ianto, you're going to get locked inside,” Jack urged him to go with James. “For god's sake, get out. I can survive anything,” he added and kissed his partner on the lips firmly before pushing him into James' arms.

 

James immediately pressed the button on his vortex manipulator that would bring them to Pete and Jackie's flat. They weren't far away though and could feel the vibrations of the explosion even there.

 

 


	27. Children of Earth: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with posting this chapter, this story is now caught up to where I've written... so posting will slow down. More is coming though, I promise! A huge thank you to my beta TheDoctorMulder!!!

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Children of Earth: Part Two

 

Ianto pushed himself out of James' arms as soon as they landed in the flat. He fell to the floor in a fit of tears and curses just as Jackie ran into the room to see what the commotion was about. 

 

That was the precise moment when the telepathic attack began again. James clenched his eyes shut and held his head as he listened to the words echoing once again. We are coming, over and over just as before and then suddenly adding the word: back. James was never more thankful that he had stuffed all of those printouts into his pocket before they fled the Hub. He shook his head to clear it and finally realized that his grandmother and Ianto were talking to him.

 

“Jamie, where's your granddad? Where is he? Jamie!” she shouted angrily.

 

“Sorry, Gran. The aliens were just at it again. I couldn't hear you. He and Gwen were getting Donna out of there before the bomb went off,” James told her as he tried to slow his racing hearts.

 

“A bomb?! What do you mean a bomb? Where's my Pete!” Jackie screeched and grabbed at Ianto's suit to get more information from him.

 

“There... there was a bomb implanted inside Jack's stomach. There was no time to get it out of him before we all ran,” Ianto told her with tears streaming down his face.

 

“Trust me, Ianto, he will live. I know that for a fact. Now, I've got some information about what's going on here. We just found it right before all this happened. I'm going straight to the top. You see if you can get a hold of granddad and Donna,” James told them as he typed in the coordinates on his vortex manipulator.

 

“Where are you going?” Ianto questioned.

 

“I've got an appointment with the Prime Minister. He just doesn't know it yet,” James replied with a smirk. 

 

In a flash of light, he disappeared from the room and landed in a dimly lit, wood panelled office. The man behind the desk looked at him confusedly.

 

“Who the hell are you?” Prime Minister Green demanded.

 

“Hello, Prime Minister. I'm James Tyler. You probably haven't heard of me. I've been a bit busy earning a few doctorates in the distant future, but, you may have heard of my dad. He's called the Doctor,” James told him as he fell heavily into a chair and crossed his feet up on the edge of the Prime Minister's desk.

 

“I'm calling security,” Green grumbled as he reached for his phone.

 

“Well, you could do that. Oh! I know! What you need is some proof. Credentials so to speak,” James said as he scrolled through the numbers on his phone and selected one. “Ah! Elizabeth! It's Jamie! Yes, I know it's been a while. No, I'm sorry, mum's not around at the moment, but I'll send her your regards. Listen, I'm with your Prime Minister at the moment and was wondering if you could just let him know a bit about who I am. You see I'd like to fix this whole problem with the kids... Yes, alright here he is,” James rambled, then held his mobile out to the Prime Minister.

 

The man glared at him suspiciously for a moment before accepting the phone. His face reflected a suitable level of shock at receiving orders from the Queen to allow James to do whatever was necessary to take care of the problem. By the time he handed the mobile back to James, he seemed to be suitably chastised and resigned to his fate.

 

“Thank you, Prime Minister,” James said with a smile.

 

At that moment, a silver haired man entered the office and began speaking to the dumbstruck Prime Minister without even noticing James' presence at all.

 

“As you know, Harkness is a difficult man to kill. Current theories suggest that his longevity is connected in some way to the Torchwood Hub. Which necessitated taking out the entire operation,” the man rambled nervously.

 

“The order came from here?!” James shouted angrily.

 

“What?” the newcomer gasped as he finally realized that they weren't alone. “Your secretary said that no one was here.”

 

“Yeah, I didn't clear my appointment through her. Now. Time for some explanations from the top. Starting with why the hell you planted a bomb inside my Uncle Jack, where you've put his body now, and you had better hope that the rest of the Torchwood team is unharmed and safe,” James demanded with all the fury his father was known for.

 

“Who the hell are you?” the man asked incredulously.

 

“He has been given full control over this situation from now on. By order of Her Majesty the Queen, who assures me that he will also receive quite the recommendation from UNIT,” Green informed him.

 

“James Tyler. And you are?” James asked, calming himself slightly.

 

“Frobisher. John Frobisher. I've been in charge of coordinating our efforts,” he replied.

 

“Right. Well, I've got the history here,” James told them as he pulled a stack of pages from his pocket. “How about you boys bring me up to speed on the current situation. While we do that however, could we please confirm the whereabouts of my friends and family?”

 

After several phone calls were made, they had confirmed that Donna, Pete, and Gwen were safe. They, along with Ianto and Jackie, were all transported to UNIT HQ where the remains of Jack Harkness were taken. James didn't have time to worry about the difficulties with Jack coming back from such a gruesome death at the moment. They were safe and he had to stop the invasion.

 

Mr. Frobisher and Prime Minister Green showed James the plans that had been sent with the various transmissions from the aliens that they referred to as the 456. The plans detailed some kind of chamber to be filled with toxic gasses and work to follow the instructions had already begun.

 

“Alright, you can stop work on it right now. We're not waiting for them to get here and we certainly aren't going to put out the red carpet for them by providing breathable air for their species. Do you have a set up for communicating with them or do they just send you transmissions?” James asked.

 

“We can send them transmissions over the 456 wavelength, but whether they respond to us or not is really out of our control,” Frobisher told him as they had clearly left the area of knowledge that the Prime Minister could answer.

 

“Ok... ok... think, James. You can solve this problem without Uncle Jack. Without mum and dad. Ok, so, I can hear them when they decide to take over all the children in their little game of scare the humans. They haven't issued demands, but I'm willing to bet that if it was children that they wanted last time, they'll probably want even more of them this time. I want whatever hardware you use to communicate with them brought over to UNIT where I'm going to meet up with my family and the rest of the Torchwood team. I'm going to need them to at least monitor a few things for me while I take care of this 456,” James rambled as he worked out the problem in a manner very similar to his father.

 

Frobisher and Green nodded in agreement, quite happy to have this problem taken off of their hands. Arrangements were made and James was transported in style to UNIT HQ, where everyone was waiting. They could hear painful screams as they walked the halls of the building and James recognized them as the voice of Jack. He knew that UNIT wouldn't be torturing him at this point, so it was likely the pain of reforming himself after being torn to pieces.

 

There was an audible sigh of relief when James entered the room where they all waited for him and he found himself being fiercely hugged by everyone present, except for Ianto, who sat tensely in the corner. James closed his eyes sadly, knowing that Ianto blamed him for taking him away from Jack. It would have been far worse though if Ianto had died and Jack came back to a world without him. With a sigh, James focussed again on the problem at hand.

 

“Here's the plan. The aliens in question have been here before. The last time they came, they demanded twelve children. They haven't issued their demands yet, but based on their little telepathic scare tactic, I'm willing to bet that the number will be far greater than twelve this time. That is not an option. I have the frequency to contact them. I've also worked out the telepathic frequency that they've been using to send their messages to the children,” James began.

 

“How do you know all this then?” Jackie asked with her hands on her hips.

 

“Oh, not now, gran! Honestly, you've seen dad work out this stuff hundreds of times before and far faster than I've managed. Now give me a little credit and let me save the world, alright?” he fumed at her.

 

Jackie backed down and moved to sit with Ianto instead. James was beyond irritated with not only everyone's lack of faith in his abilities, but his own frustration with it taking him so long to fix the problem.

 

“Now, I have a plan that will stop them for good, but as you all know, we need to give them a chance to back off on their own first. That's why I'm going to contact them with a warning before I act against them,” James informed the team.

 

“And what exactly is your plan to stop them?” Gwen asked him, her arms crossed over her chest.

 

“I'm going to use their own telepathic wavelength to send a feedback wave that will kill them all,” James replied curtly through clenched teeth.

 

The room went silent as they stared at him in shock.

 

“Ok, I'm presuming that you have some plan for doing that, Jamie. But I just have to ask, are you sure that's the only way? Do we have to kill them?” Pete questioned as gently as he could. It was obvious to all of them that James was not happy with any of this.

 

James sighed and covered his face with both hands as he paced in frustration. Why did they have to question everything? This was why dad was always hiding his plans from those around him. James was confident with this plan. It would work and he could save the world before these invaders even came into orbit.

 

“Yes, I have a plan. Yes, it will work. Yes, this is the only way. If they chose not to leave of their own accord, then they will just keep on coming and threatening and bullying. And the next time, they won't ask,” James told them.

 

“We'll help you, Jamie. We just wanted to make sure that you had considered all of the options,” Donna said supportively. She came next to him and gave him a warm hug. Her wheelchair had taken some damage while they were escaping the Hub earlier and James made a mental note to fix it up for her later.

 

“While I'm sending the telepathic attack back at them, I'm going to need you to monitor my condition. I'll be sending the signal myself and it's going to be difficult. But the children of the world are at stake, and a little risk on my end is more than worth it. So, let's get to work,” James informed them.

 

The Torchwood team nodded and set about creating a system to communicate with the creatures as well as a system to create the signal that would be channelled through James to telepathically attack the 456. Several scanners were set up to monitor James' condition throughout.

 

As all of this was happening, Jackie decided that it was time to call in the cavalry. She dialled Rose's mobile, but was sent to voicemail. “Rose, there's something happening here. Aliens are taking over the kids all over the world. Making them all talk like zombies and things. Jamie is trying to fix everything, but he said that something was going to be risky and Jack got exploded by a bomb in his stomach. He's screaming something awful and I think you and the Doctor need to come back here now,” she hissed a hurried whisper into the phone.

 

Ianto watched as she made the phone call. He knew James wouldn't be happy with that development, but wasn't about to get in the way of Jackie Tyler.

 

The team spent hours working on the equipment needed for James' plan. Jack had joined them eventually, and after a brief and reassuring reunion with Ianto, the couple had joined in preparing what was needed. Jack was uneasy with James' plan to send the signal himself, but agreed that it was by far the safest route. No one else on Earth could hope to survive something like that.

 

The time had come for James to give the 456 their chance to leave the planet and their plan behind. The radio used to contact them was powered up and James drew upon all knowledge of intergalactic law for this conversation. They invited one of the UNIT generals to be in attendance. As they knew the reputation of both the Doctor and Torchwood in dealing with this sort of situation, however, the general stayed conspicuously silent throughout the events.

 

“This is James Tyler communicating on behalf of the human race. I demand communication in accordance with the laws of the Shadow Proclamation. This planet is protected. State your intentions,” he spoke into the microphone, sounding much more confident than he felt.

 

There was a long pause before any reply came, but eventually, a voice sounded. Without any translation matrix set up, James was the only person that understood the reply. The voice was deep and growling, sounding like multiple voices speaking in unison. “We do not recognize your claim of protection over this planet. Request denied.”

 

“I am not making a request. You will state your intent or you will be destroyed,” James insisted, responding in their own language. He cursed internally at the knowledge of this species.

 

“We have come for the children. We will take ten percent,” the voice stated.

 

“You will not. The people of this planet are protected. You will leave or you will be destroyed,” James warned.

 

“The people of this planet will learn pain for this defiance. Request denied,” the voice of the 456 replied.

 

James smacked his hand against the table and growled.

 

“Ok, Jamie. I take it from you knowing their language, that you have some inkling as to who we are dealing with here?” Jack questioned as everyone looked to him worriedly. Clearly his frustration told them what kind of reply the 456 had given.

 

“Yeah. They'll never back down. They are demanding ten percent of the children on Earth. And I'm willing to bet that if we hand them over, that number will just get bigger and bigger and bigger. They have to be stopped now, before they make orbit and have a chance to use any weapons to prove their superiority,” James informed them angrily.

 

“Are we ready then? Let's get this stuff online,” Gwen responded, absently rubbing her belly where her newly conceived child was growing.

 

“Wait! What about calling the Doctor, yeah? He could help us, I'm sure,” Jackie interrupted from where she had watched everything worriedly.

 

“Stop it, gran. I know what I'm doing. This will work and everyone will be safe,” James shouted as he typed the sequence that would begin running his program.

 

Donna and Gwen stared at the computer screens that were their assignments during this plan and Jack helped James attach the sensors around his head and chest. James placed a metal circlet on his head that had several wires running from it back to the computers that would feed the correct frequency into his mind to be transmitted to the 456.

 

In the corner, Jackie was frantically trying to call Rose's mobile, but kept getting her voicemail every time. 

 

James closed his eyes and focussed on the telepathic frequency that had been bombarding him as well as all of the children on Earth. As he allowed the feedback wavelength into his mind to send, he felt a burning pain searing through his brain. He fought desperately to contain it, but in his desperation to maintain the link and keep sending the signal, his control over the rest of his body slipped. He began to shake and a painful scream escaped his lips.

 

Jack stood directly in front of James, ready to rip the equipment from him the moment the monitors exceeded the levels James had indicated would be too much. He looked worriedly at Gwen and Donna for a signal when James had started screaming, but both shook their heads negatively. Jack held the young man upright when the tremors started, sincerely hoping that his nephew wouldn't regenerate in his arms.

 

After five terrifying minutes, the signal suddenly shut itself off and James slumped in Jack's arms.

 

“Oh my god!” Jackie gasped, but was held back by Pete before she could run to James' side.

 

“He's alright,” Donna informed them as she watched James' vital signs displayed on the screen in front of her. “He's just unconscious. From the sounds of it, he could use the nap.”

 

“Yan, help me get this stuff off of him,” Jack called to his boyfriend. Ianto ran over immediately and assisted Jack in removing the various wires and probes from the unconscious Time Lord.

 

In a flash of light, River Song appeared. She ran to James' side and pulled a futuristic injector from a medical kit. She injected James with something and scanned him with her handheld computer.

 

“You sure you know what you're doing, River?” Jack asked her pointedly.

 

“Positive. He's the one that sent me. I'm taking him somewhere that he can recover properly,” River told them.

 

“The hell you are! You ain't taking him anywhere. His parents can get their arses here and take care of him, thank you very much,” Jackie snarled at the unknown woman.

 

“Jackie, with all due respect, I know what I'm doing. I know what he needs and he is perfectly safe with me. I would never allow anything to happen to James,” River replied harshly as she began to gather the man that would become her husband into her arms for transport.

 

Just as the sound of the TARDIS began to echo through the room, River smiled weakly at them and she disappeared with the man in her arms.

 

The TARDIS doors squeaked open, Rose and the Doctor running out immediately. “What the hell is going on?” Rose demanded.

 

Jackie was in tears while being held in Pete's arms. Rose moved to comfort her as well, but looked to the rest of the Torchwood team for explanations. Jack got up from the floor and approached the tables where Donna and Gwen had been working.

 

“We had a little problem with some rather unpleasant aliens demanding that we hand over 10% of the children on the planet. Jamie sent some kind of telepathic feedback signal when they refused to back down. He was in pretty rough shape after, but then River showed up...” Jack explained.

 

“River?” the Doctor interrupted and looked up from the computer screen at her name.

 

“Yeah, she said that Jamie was the one that sent her here to take him somewhere to recover properly. She left with him just before you got here,” Jack told them.

 

“She will keep him safe, won't she, Doctor?” Rose asked him worriedly. Her voice was trembling as she left her mother's side and moved to her husband's arms. 

 

He held her tightly and rubbed her back. “Of course she will, love. She's family, we know that. And if Jamie sent her here, then we can be pretty sure that he trusts her,” the Doctor responded soothingly. “Now, since we're here, let's take advantage of the time to visit a bit, while I look over what Jamie was up to here.”

 


	28. The Pandorica Opens: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok... we are approaching the end of series 5. These last few chapters are rather important, as you might guess. I hope you like the changes that I've made. I also hope that you all like what I've done with River and James' relationship. It was important to me that her relationship with her husband was established and real, NOT like the shallow mess we saw in the show. Anyway, HUGE thanks to my amazing beta, TheDoctorMulder!!!! Please review!!

Chapter Twenty-Eight – The Pandorica Opens: Part One

 

 

River sat in her cell at Stormcage, where she had been ever since that day at Lake Silencio. There was the occasional field trip with James, of course. He took her out all the time to visit the nicest places in the universe, but in the end, she was always back here for the sake of his incredible family.

 

The phone on the wall outside her cell started ringing and the guard nearby picked it up. “Cell four two six. The Doctor? Do you mean Doctor Song?” he asked into the handset.

 

River jumped from her bed and pressed against the bars to address the young man. “Give me that!” she called to him. “Seriously, just give it to me. I'm entitled to phone calls.”

 

The guard seemed slightly reluctant, but if she wasn't who they were looking for, what harm would it do? So he handed the phone to River and stood nearby.

 

“Doctor?” River asked into the phone as she turned away from the guard for a little bit of privacy.

 

“No, and neither are you. Where is he?” the voice on the other end asked.

 

“You're phoning the Time Vortex. It doesn't always work, but the TARDIS is smart. She's rerouted the call. Talk quickly. This connection will last less than a minute,” River informed him.

 

She listened intently to the information conveyed before the line went dead. She knew she would need some help with this and knew exactly who to call, she just had to deal with her guard. He wasn't familiar. She decided he must be new and would easily fall for her hallucinogenic lipstick. 

 

Once he was locked inside and she was out, she phoned James' mobile. The voice that answered was familiar, but it wasn't James. “Hello, River. I was waiting for you to call. He's just waking up now and I'll send him over to you shortly,” she said.

 

“Umm... yes. Thank you... River,” she replied to her future self. That was a conversation to look forward to. She replaced the handset on the phone cradle and waited for James to pick her up, hopefully before the other guards came around.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

James woke with a start and gasped as he looked around worriedly. His head was pounding from the telepathic battle against the 456 and he fell back into the soft pillow roughly.

 

“Just relax, James. You're safe and you've healed almost completely now. That was a very dangerous thing you did. You almost regenerated and what would I do if I didn't get to see this lovely freckled face the first time I met you?” River told him as she soothingly stroked his forehead.

 

“Mmm. River? Where am I?” James croaked horsely.

 

“My place. After Stormcage. You sent me to go pick you up from Torchwood after the 456. Otherwise your parents would have been the ones to get you and you didn't want to wake up to the sound of your mother and grandmother shouting. Now, as soon as you feel up to it, you got a phone call just now from me in the past. She needs your help with something very important, but take your time because you'll need to be at your best for this one,” River informed him.

 

He sat up shakily and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “Thank you, River. Mum and dad will be very upset with me for that one. Not looking forward to that lecture,” James mumbled and took small sips from the glass of water that River handed to him.

 

“I'm very glad that you're alright, James,” River sighed and hugged him tightly.

 

He could hear the strain in her voice telling him that she was near tears. “When are you, River? How long has it been since you've been with a me that has a proper connection with you?” he asked as he returned the embrace.

 

River sniffed back some tears. “Well, you were here just before I picked you up. I told you, you were the one that sent me,” she replied, but he could tell she was dodging a bit.

 

“River,” he insisted as he moved to look into her tear-filled eyes.

 

“It was a short visit. You didn't have much time. I was at the crash of the Byzantium not too long ago,” she admitted.

 

“Oh River. I'm sorry. I wish our lives weren't so back to front. I promise you, there will come a day, when you and I will stay together on the same timeline,” he told her. She was about to protest, but he placed a finger over her lips. “I promise you. With all of the power that I have as a Time Lord and if I have to, I'll even swallow my pride enough to ask for help. But there will come a day, when we can move on from this jumping around.”

 

River nodded and buried her head in his shoulder for another hug.

 

“I should get going. I can feel the timelines tugging at me. This is an important trip, isn't it?” James asked as he snuggled into the mass of curls by his face. 

 

“Very important,” she sighed and pulled herself back together.

 

“Have you been to my graduation yet?” he asked her.

 

“No, can't say that I have,” she replied with a raised eyebrow.

 

“I think you could use a bit of a vacation, Doctor Song. Maybe take me to Barcelona?” he suggested as he matched her expression.

 

She smiled then and he leaned in to give her a kiss, just like he had at the fountain where he first told her that he loved her. It was a strange relationship for sure, but she had been there for him when he needed a friend and had always treated him with respect, never looking down on him despite his age.

 

“See you soon, love,” he said as she typed in the required coordinates on his vortex manipulator for him.

 

“Not if I see you first, James,” she teased with the phrase that his mother loved to use so much.

 

He laughed and pressed the button to take him to the past River.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

James materialized in the hallway of Stormcage and heard the alarms blaring. Looking down the hallway, he saw a slightly nervous looking River. He ran towards her, watching for guards, and grasped her hand as soon as it was in reach. She gasped and turned to see who had snuck up on her, but was shocked when James immediately pressed his lips to hers. He didn't want her to make a sound that might give them away, even if the alarms were rather loud, and it seemed like a fun way to keep her quiet.

 

She slapped him lightly on the chest and he released her from the kiss with an audible smack. He grinned at her proudly and whispered close to her ear, “You rang for a taxi? Where to ma'am?”

 

“That's very prompt and thorough service. I'll be sure to recommend you to all my friends,” she replied cheekily as she started to enter coordinates into his manipulator.

 

“Where's yours?” he asked as he noticed that her wrist was bare.

 

“I don't have a vortex manipulator, James,” she informed him, as if he should know that.

 

“Let's get out of here, then we can compare timelines,” he whispered and wrapped an arm around her waist before pressing the button.

 

They materialized in a dark room. It looked like a museum that had been ransacked and it felt like they were on a space station of some kind. River seemed a bit disoriented from the trip and was gasping slightly. It surprised him a little because she had never seemed to have that trouble before.

 

“Oh, I don't think I'll ever get used to that thing,” she chuckled.

 

“I wouldn't be so sure,” he replied with a grin, realizing that he knew more about her future this time. “When are you?” he asked. He realized though, that the River he had just left had just come from the Byzantium and hadn't yet gone with him after graduation. There was likely nothing in common in their diaries right now.

 

“I've been in Stormcage for close to a decade, but you visit me often. Have you been to Berlin yet?” River questioned.

 

“No, I can't say that I have. I believe, Doctor Song, that this might just be the youngest version of you that I've met so far,” James replied. “So, what are we doing here?”

 

“I just got a phone call from an old friend of yours. Winston Churchill?” she informed him as she looked around the darkened room to get her bearings.

 

“Oh, what did he want?” James wondered, that had been an unpleasant adventure. Not that Winston was unpleasant, but dealing with Daleks was always an unpleasant time.

 

“Your mum and dad met up with Vincent Van Gogh not too long ago, and Vincent painted a message for your dad. We're here to retrieve it,” River responded and took his hand as she started searching through the various paintings.

 

“Did Winston say what it was we were looking for?” James asked as he eyed the various masterpieces lying around in ruins. It was too bad that these weren't saved in that gallery he had once found inside the depths of the TARDIS.

 

“I think I found it,” she told him, sounding worried.

 

James ran to her side and gasped at the frightening sight. The painting clearly depicted his parents' TARDIS in the midst of exploding violently. The sign on the door had a long line of date and location coordinates, clearly telling them where and when they needed to be to try and prevent this catastrophe.

 

River tore the painting down from the frame it was loosely attached to and rolled it up carefully.

 

“We've got to contact them, there has to be a way to prevent that from happening,” James said nervously.

 

“We will. Let's get out of here first,” River replied and suddenly, the lights came on overhead.

 

Standing before them, blaster in hand, was someone very familiar to James. They both raised their arms, River still holding the rolled up painting in one hand.

 

“This is the Royal Collection, and I'm the bloody Queen. What are you doing here?” Liz demanded.

 

“Ma'am, I know it's been a while, but I'm James Tyler,” he told her, hoping that she would recognize him even if the last time they met, he had been only eight years old.

 

“Jamie? What are you doing here? And who's she?” Liz Ten demanded, she moved her blaster away from James, but kept it pointed at River.

 

“This is River. She's my... friend,” he responded, not quite sure what to call his future wife. He stepped slightly in front of River, making it clear that if the Queen decided to shoot, she'd have to go through him before getting to her.

 

“It's about the Doctor, Ma'am,” River told her over James' shoulder.

 

“The Doctor?” Liz asked suspiciously.

 

“He's in trouble and we have to warn him,” River explained.

 

“So, why are the two of you stealing a painting?” she wondered.

 

“Trust me, this is a very important message that we need to deliver,” James replied as he took the painting from River and unrolled it for the Queen to see.

 

Liz Ten started at the painting wide-eyed and simply nodded to the pair that they could go.

 

“Thank you, Liz,” James said and tugged River by the hand behind him as they left the depths of the space station for easier transport out of there.

 

As they ran down the dark hallways, River asked, “You implied that I might have my own vortex manipulator someday. I don't suppose you know where I might find one?”

 

“Tell you what. I'll get started making another one just for you, love,” he told her with a smile. “Let's try giving dad a call and relaying these coordinates.”

 

They tried repeatedly to call the TARDIS phone and Rose's phone, but couldn't seem to get through. 

 

“I have an idea. I am an expert in archeology. Have you ever heard of Planet One?” River asked with a mischievous smirk.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

“Vavoom!” the Doctor cried from the console.

 

“Va-what?” Amy questioned as she entered the room from a nearby staircase.

 

“I can't believe I've never thought of this before. It's genius. Right. Landed. Come on!” he rambled as he took a hand of both Rose and Amy and headed towards the doors.

 

“Hang on, love. Where are we? What's got you so excited?” Rose asked with an amused smile.

 

“Planet One,” he grinned.

 

“Planet One?” Rose asked, mirroring his excitement.

 

“The oldest planet in the universe. And there's a cliff of pure diamond, and according to legend, on the cliff there's writing. Letters fifty feet high. A message from the dawn of time, and no one knows what it says, because no one's ever translated it,” the Doctor told them, manic glee nearly overpowering his ability to continue standing in one place.

 

“And we're going to translate it?” Rose realized happily.

 

“Exactly! The TARDIS translation circuits will translate anything. All we have to do is open the doors and read the very first words in recorded history!” the Doctor explained and proceeded to drag them both towards the doors of the time ship.

 

He opened the doors with a flourish and the three of them walked out into a humid jungle. There were colourful birds flying around the lush landscape and Rose ducked to the side as a giant dragonfly nearly collided with her. They walked forward together and stared at the cliff before them.

 

The words, 'Hello Sweetie,' were followed by the symbols ' ΘΣ' to indicate the Doctor's nickname from the Academy. The rest was a set of coordinates.

 

“Vavoom,” Amy commented.

 

“Indeed. I really wish she'd stop calling you that,” Rose grumbled and tugged the Doctor back inside the TARDIS.

 

Following the coordinates that had been left for them, they materialized on a hill. The air was cool, much cooler than the jungle they had just left.

 

“Right place?” Amy asked.

 

“Just followed the coordinates on the cliff face. Earth. Britain. One oh two am,” he said as he studied his watch. “No, pm,” he added shaking it a bit as he looked around.

 

“I think you mean AD, love,” Rose told him as they noticed the Roman camp at the bottom of the hill.

 

Soldiers were wandering through the tents. It looked as though they were waiting for something.

 

“That's a Roman Legion,” Amy said excitedly.

 

“Well, yeah. The Romans invaded Britain several times during this period,” the Doctor lectured.

 

“Oh, I know. My favourite topic at school. _'Invasion of the Hot Italians'_ ,” Amy replied and Rose snorted, trying to contain her laughter. “Yeah, I did get marked down for the title,” Amy admitted.

 

As the two girls giggled over the little joke, one of the soldiers ran up and saluted them, “Hail, Caesar!”

 

“Hi,” the Doctor responded awkwardly.

 

“Welcome to Britain. We are honoured by your presence,” the soldier told them.

 

“Well, you're only human. Arise, Roman person,” the Doctor commanded.

 

“Why does he think you're Caesar?” Amy whispered to the Doctor.

 

As the Roman stood up and looked at them more directly, they could see a red smear beside his mouth that looked like lipstick. His gaze seemed slightly clouded as he announced, “Cleopatra and Mark Antony will see you now.”

 

They followed him down into the camp. He led them to the largest tent and the trio went inside, not surprised to see River dressed as Cleopatra, but slightly surprised to see James dressed as her Mark Antony.

 

“I really wish you'd stop kissing them,” James complained.

 

“If you'd rather I used my hallucinogenic lipstick on you, it can be arranged,” she argued.

 

“River, Jamie, hi,” Amy greeted them.

 

“Oh my god,” Rose cried as she ran over to hug her son tightly. “Are you alright? We were just at Torchwood not long ago, they said you were unconscious.”

 

“I'm fine, mum. River took good care of me,” he replied and at River's confused look, he added, “Not _this_ River. A future River took care of me, then sent me back to help out this River. Oh, this has to be the most confusing relationship in the universe.”

 

After extricating himself from his mother's grasp, James moved to give his father a hug as well. The Doctor looked him over, taking in everything he could about his son's appearance and behaviour. Deciding that he seemed to be in good health, the Doctor moved on to his next order of business.

 

“You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe,” the Doctor chastised River.

 

“You wouldn't answer your phone,” she argued.

 

“We did try, dad. We called the TARDIS phone and mum's mobile several times. And really, I know for a fact that you've got your own marks all over history. That's why we go to so many museums,” James said, defending their slightly larger than necessary message on Planet One. He shared an amused glance with River. They'd had a great time carving the message into the cliff.

 

River laughed and handed the Doctor the rolled up painting that they had stolen.

 

“What's this?” he asked as he took it to a nearby table to lay it flat. Rose moved next to him to take a look as well.

 

“It's a painting from Vincent Van Gogh. I understand the three of you visited with him not too long ago? This was one of his final works and it seems to be a message for you, dad,” James informed him as he unrolled the canvas.

 

Rose gasped when she saw it and clutched the Doctor's arm tightly. The Doctor's brow furrowed in confusion.

 

“Doctor? Doctor, what is this?” Amy questioned as she recognized that this was a painting of the TARDIS. “Why is it exploding?” she added.

 

“I assume it's some kind of warning,” River told them.

 

“What? Something's going to happen to the TARDIS?” Amy asked.

 

Rose and the Doctor exchanged a worried look, both thinking of the charred piece of the TARDIS door that he had pulled from the crack when they met the Silurians. The Doctor held her hand tightly as they tried to focus on what was happening right now.

 

“It might not be that literal. Anyway, this is where he wanted you. Date and map reference on the door sign, see?” River told them.

 

“And it might be completely literal,” James added worriedly, not missing the apprehension he felt coming from the link with his parents.

 

“Does it have a title?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“The Pandorica Opens,” James responded with a knowing look. They all remembered what River had told them about the Pandorica after meeting the Weeping Angels.

 

“The Pandorica? What is it?” Amy asked.

 

“A box, a cage, a prison. It was built to contain a pair of the most feared beings in all the universe,” River explained, her knowledge clearly coming from her archeological studies.

 

“And you don't know what those beings are, River?” Rose wondered. River shook her head as they watched the Doctor pacing agitatedly around the tent.

 

“It's a fairy tale, a legend. It can't be real!” the Doctor argued.

 

“Yeah, and neither could the devil. You remember how that went down,” Rose countered. She got very frustrated by his insistence on things being impossible all the time.

 

“If it is real, it's here and it's opening. And it's got something to do with your TARDIS exploding,” River told them.

 

“You know that legends are based on facts, dad. You reminded us of that on that pirate ship,” James told him.

 

“Pirate ship? What pirate ship? No, wait, don't tell me. We haven't done that part yet,” the Doctor said quickly as he pulled out some maps from nearby to spread out on the table.

 

“The Pandorica has been buried for centuries. You won't find it on a map,” River argued.

 

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” Rose replied and crossed her arms over chest as she leaned against the table next to where the Doctor was scouring the map.

 

“If you buried the most dangerous things in the universe, you might want to remember where you put them,” the Doctor added with a quick kiss to his wife's cheek. He pointed confidently to a landmark that was quite nearby on the map.

 

 


	29. The Pandorica Opens: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you goes to TheDoctorMulder for checking over these really fast. I've been kind of pushing to finish up this part of the series soon. I hope you like the little changes that I made in this one. It's terrifying when I modify famous speeches, so I hope you don't think that I ruined it. Please review!!!

Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Pandorica Opens: Part Two

 

 

They borrowed horses from the Romans to make their way to Stonehenge. The Doctor was sure that this must be the place. It was near the coordinates and there was no other known purpose for the location of the place, why not leave it as a marker for something as important as the Pandorica?

 

As soon as they got off of their horses, the Doctor and James started scanning the stones with their sonics. Rose left them to it, since she likely wouldn't understand what she was looking for with her own.

 

“How come it's not new?” Amy asked as she wandered the site that was closed off to tourists in her time.

 

“Because it's already old. It's been here thousands of years. No one knows exactly how long,” River replied, running her own scans on her handheld computer.

 

“Ok, this Pandorica thing. Last time we saw you, other than at Jamie's graduation, yeah? You warned us about it, after we climbed out of the Byzantium,” Amy said.

 

“Spoilers, Amy! This River hasn't done that yet,” James interrupted.

 

“No, but you told the Doctor and Rose that you'd see them again when the Pandorica opens,” Amy insisted.

 

“Maybe I did, but I haven't yet. But I will have. James, I'm picking up fry particles everywhere. Energy weapons discharged on this site,” she called.

 

“That is definitely not good,” James replied as he moved to look at the screen over her shoulder.

 

“If the Pandorica is here, it contains the mightiest creatures in history. Now, half of the galaxy would want a piece of that. Maybe even fight over it. We need to get down there,” the Doctor told them as he frustratedly continued to scan for some sign of an entrance.

 

“Maybe one of the stones on the ground is a door or something, yeah?” Rose suggested.

 

“Probably. The question is, which one and how do we go about opening it,” the Doctor acknowledged with a quick kiss.

 

Amy and Rose perched themselves on one of the fallen stones as the others ran their various scans over every stone in the area for hours. They eventually settled on one of them and, using River's computer, managed to hack into some kind of security system that was sealing the entrance. With a few beeps, the rock slid to the side, revealing a staircase into the ground below. At the bottom of the stairs, they were faced with a huge set of double wooden doors. There were torches nearby which were quickly lit by the Doctor and James, held nearby to give enough light by Rose and River. James and the Doctor quickly lifted the bar that was holding the doors shut and tossed it aside.

 

Beyond the doors, there was a huge, dusty room that looked to be untouched for centuries. In the middle of the room, stood an enormous, black box. The sides of it were covered in some kind of circular markings that looked like a labyrinth or something.

 

“It's a Pandorica,” the Doctor gasped as he walked towards it curiously.

 

“Something else that proves to be real,” Rose sighed and followed her husband.

 

“More than just a fairy tale,” River added.

 

James noticed the severed arm of a Cyberman lying on the floor nearby and decided to look around for any other signs of alien activity in the room.

 

“It's said that there was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior, and he fooled an angel into pairing with him for all eternity. Nameless and terrible, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies, he could corrupt the most perfect of beings. They were feared across the cosmos and nothing could stop them or hold them or reason with them. One day, they would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world,” the Doctor shared the legend as he knew it.

 

Rose felt a shiver run down her spine at his telling. Something about it felt familiar, but twisted in a way that couldn't be true. And yet, she always chastised her husband at claiming things to be impossible.

 

“How did they end up in there?” Amy asked.

 

“You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it,” the Doctor told her as he studied the markings on the outside of the box.

 

“I hate good wizards in fairy tales. They always turn out to be him,” River snarked.

 

“Oi! I happen to love that wonderful wizard, thank you very much,” Rose argued and gave her husband a sideways hug, looking at the markings along with him. In the back of her mind, she felt something stirring, a memory or a power that made her earlier unease grow.

 

“You're just jealous that you and I haven't left that big of a footprint on the universe yet,” James called to River teasingly.

 

The Doctor and Rose looked between the pair curiously, then back at each other with raised eyebrows. They had been catching the hints that their son and River might be involved with each other somehow, but that statement made it very clear that their timelines were entwined.

 

“So, it's kind of like Pandora's Box, then? Almost the same name,” Amy commented.

 

“Sorry, what?” the Doctor asked distractedly, still working on the patterns on the side of the box and processing the news that River's connection to their family was likely through a future marriage to his son.

 

“The story, Pandora's Box, with all the worst things in the world in it? That was my favourite book when I was a kid,” Amy told them and was confused when the Doctor was suddenly looking at her like she was some kind of experiment. “What's wrong?” she asked nervously.

 

“Your favourite school topic. Your favourite story. Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence,” the Doctor announced and went back to studying the box.

 

“In other words, coincidence noticed and filed away for future reference,” Rose commented and shook her head at her husband's quirks.

 

“Can you open it, dad?” James asked as he leaned on the box next to him.

 

“Easily. Anyone can break into a prison. But I'd rather know what I'm going to find first,” the Doctor replied, hoping that something in the markings would give him a clue as to the identity of the creatures it held.

 

“You won't have long to wait. It's already opening,” River told him as she scanned the Pandorica with her computer.

 

James looked at the screen over her shoulder and commented, “There are layers and layers of security protocols in there. A ridiculous amount of them really and they are all being disabled one by one. It's almost as if it were being unlocked from the inside,” James said as he analyzed the data.

 

“How long do we have?” the Doctor wondered, taking Rose's hand and backing them both away from the box slightly.

 

“Hours at the most,” River replied.

 

“What kind of security?” he questioned.

 

“Just about everything you can think of, dad. Deadlocks, time stops, matter lines,” James listed as he scrolled through the data on River's computer.

 

“What could need all that?” the Doctor asked.

 

“What could get past all that?” River questioned worriedly.

 

“We've escaped from a beast imprisoned by a black hole. This is just a thing in a box,” Rose said confidently.

 

“Think of the fear that went into making this box. What could inspire that level of fear?” the Doctor mused and addressed the box itself, asking, “Hello, have we met before?”

 

“Hang on, dad. Why is it suddenly opening now? What triggered it?” James asked pointedly.

 

“He's right, love. Did we start it up by coming down here? Or did someone see us coming and set it off?” Rose theorized and rubbed her arms tensely, the feeling of unease returning in full force.

 

“I don't know, but we've dealt with worse than this before, as you've so brilliantly pointed out, Rose. Now calm down,” the Doctor said soothingly and pulled her into a hug, rubbing circles on her back.

 

“Ahem, and how could Vincent have known about it? He won't even be born for centuries,” Amy asked.

 

“Well, him knowing about something in the past isn't all that hard, really Amy,” James scoffed. “I'd be more concerned if he had predicted something in the future,” he added.

 

“The stones,” the Doctor said as he stared at the large stone pillars in the cavern. They were similar to the ones above them. “These stones are great big transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere, to every time zone. The Pandorica is opening,” he explained.

 

“Doctor, everyone, everywhere?” River prompted.

 

“Even poor Vincent heard it, in his dreams. But what's in there? What could justify all this?” the Doctor rambled, ignoring River's comment.

 

“Dad, what do you mean everyone?” James pressed, catching onto River's worry.

 

“Anything that powerful, I'd know about it. Why don't I know?” the Doctor mumbled.

 

“Love, listen to us for a moment, please,” Rose said as she grasped his upper arms and met his gaze. “You said everyone could hear the warning. Shouldn't we be a bit worried about who else might be coming?”

 

“Oh,” the Doctor realized.

 

James and River immediately started running scans on the transmitting stones to try and follow the signal. They worked seamlessly despite being out of sync in their timelines. It was clear to each of them that the other had spent a significant amount of time with some version of themselves. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that, however, they had work to do.

 

“Oh? Oh, what?” Amy questioned, clearly annoyed at being left out of most of this conversation.

 

“You should be able to fold back the signal, Jamie,” the Doctor suggested.

 

“Yes, dad. We're already doing that, thanks,” James sighed, annoyed that his capabilities were being underestimated again.

 

“Doing what?” Amy shouted in frustration.

 

“Listen, Amy. Vincent heard some kind of warning message that is being sent out to the entire universe, across time. If he could hear it, then we need to know who else heard it and whether or not they are planning to come here as well,” Rose explained to the furious ginger.

 

“What have you got, love?” James asked as he ran over to look at River's computer.

 

“Around this planet, there are at least ten thousand starships,” River replied as she scrolled through the information she was receiving.

 

“Ten thousand?” Rose squeaked.

 

“At least?” Amy added.

 

“Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million... I don't know. There's too many readings,” River told them.

 

“What kind of starships?” the Doctor questioned.

 

As James tapped a few things on the screen, they intercepted communications from some of the ships. The sound of Daleks was clearly heard by all of them.

 

“No! Not the bloody Daleks!” Rose growled.

 

“Yes. Ok, ok, ok... Dalek fleet, minimum twelve thousand battleships, armed to the teeth. Ah! But we've got surprise on our side. They'll never expect five people to attack twelve thousand Dalek battleships because we'd be killed instantly. So it would be a fairly short surprise,” the Doctor rambled.

 

“Do you think I could try to...” Rose began as she looked into her husband's eyes nervously.

 

“No! No, we aren't going to play around with that,” the Doctor told her forcefully.

 

“Cyberships, dad,” James interrupted as they intercepted another communication.

 

“No, Dalek ships. Listen to them. Those are Dalek ships,” the Doctor replied assuredly.

 

“Dalek ships _and_ Cyberships,” River informed him.

 

Rose nearly crumpled in his arms. The last time that they faced both of those at the same time together, they had been separated by universes. The Doctor squeezed her tightly as he continued to ramble, looking for a solution, “Well, we need to start a fight, turn them on each other. I mean, that's easy. It's the Daleks. They're so cross...”

 

“Sontarans. Four battle fleets,” James interrupted.

 

“Sontarans! Talk about cross, who stole their handbags?” the Doctor shouted, grasping at straws as his stress level rose.

 

“Terileptil, Slitheen, Chelonian, Nestene, Drahvin, Sycorax, Haemogoth, Zygon, Atraxi, Draconian. Geez, dad, I don't even know some of these,” James listed worriedly.

 

The Doctor held his wife tightly as he walked back towards the Pandorica and asked, “What are you? What could you possibly be?”

 

All of them ran back up the stairs outside to see a sky filled with the lights of thousands of spaceships. They stared at the sky, dumbstruck by what they were facing.

 

“What do we do?” Amy asked them, sure that her friends would have a solution.

 

“Doctor, Rose, listen to me. Everything that ever hated you is coming here tonight. You can't win this. You can't even fight it. Please, just this once, the both of you have to run,” River told them adamantly.

 

“Oh my god. I can't believe we were the ones to call you here,” James said with tears in his eyes.

 

“Run where?” the Doctor asked.

 

“And leave the Earth unprotected from that?!” Rose shouted as she pointed to the threat in the sky.

 

“But how can we stop them?” James questioned his parents.

 

“The greatest military machine in the history of the universe,” the Doctor replied.

 

“What is? The Daleks?” Amy postulated.

 

“No. No, no, no. The Romans,” the Doctor told them.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

River and James returned to the Roman camp as fast as their horses would carry them. The soldiers were in a panic when they arrived, all worried that it was the end of the world with all of the spaceships flying around.

 

In the large tent that they had been using before, they discovered the legion Commander waiting for them. “So, I return to my command after one week and discover we've been playing host to Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Who are in Egypt. And dead,” the man raged.

 

“Yes. Funny how things work out,” River replied, not sure exactly how they were going to explain this.

 

“The sky is falling and you make jokes. Who are you?” the Commander demanded.

 

“Those things in the sky? Those are the invaders. Just like when you swoop down on the barbarians of other countries, now they are swooping down on you,” James told him as he pointed towards the swirling ships above them. “You are smart enough to understand this, Commander. Now, there are people that can save you and stop this invasion, but they need your help.”

 

“And why should I believe you? Why not just kill both of you right now?” he asked with a glare as he raised his sword towards them.

 

River drew her blaster and vapourized the nearby desk.

 

“What is that? Tell me what?” the Commander ordered, clearly in a panic.

 

“A fool would say the work of the gods, but you've been a soldier too long to believe there are gods watching over us. Now, will you help us?” River responded as she held the blaster towards him.

 

“Sir?” a voice came from the shadows of the doorway.

 

“One moment,” the Commander told them as he moved to listen. He turned back into the tent and said, “Well, it seems you have a volunteer.”

 

They led a group of fifty volunteers back to Stonehenge. It certainly wasn't all of them, but it was better than nothing.

 

“Why didn't the future you warn me about this? Or why didn't the future me warn you about this?” River wondered.

 

“Timelines. This has to happen. It's related to the cracks in the universe and if there never was a crack in Amy's bedroom when she was a girl, then everything since my dad's regeneration would be different,” James answered. As much as all of this was terrifying, he could feel that it was fixed. Whatever was going to happen, had to happen.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

Rose and Amy sat nearby and watched as the Doctor continued to study the Pandorica. None of them knew what to do for the moment. Rose fiddled a bit with the Vortex Manipulator that Jamie had left with her. Given all the aliens threatening in the sky, he didn't want to leave his parents with no way to run before he could bring the TARDIS back. It was safer not to have both of their methods of escape in the same place, even if it should only be for a few minutes.

 

“So, what's this got to do with the TARDIS?” Amy questioned.

 

“Nothing, as far as I know,” the Doctor replied distractedly.

 

Rose rolled her eyes and explained, “He doesn't see a connection yet, so that problem is on the back burner for now.”

 

“One problem at a time. There's forcefield technology inside this box. If I can enhance the signal, I could extend it all over Stonehenge. Could buy us half an hour,” the Doctor rambled.

 

“What good is half an hour?” Amy asked.

 

“Oh, we've saved entire planets in only ten minutes!” Rose bragged with a genuine smile.

 

“There are fruit flies on Hoppledom Six that live for twenty minutes and they don't even mate for life. There was a going to be a point to that. I'll get back to you,” the Doctor told them.

 

Rose laughed. This incarnation of the Doctor had similarities to the last one, but he was so different in other ways. He still talked a lot. Still talked his way through working out a solution, but some of the things that came out of his mouth were so utterly ridiculous, pointless even sometimes. He was far less serious, although she knew that the Oncoming Storm could show itself in the worst of times. Overall though, he seemed lighter and more carefree than before. She wasn't sure how much of that was because of her and Jamie, but overall, they were happy.

 

Amy pulled a small red box from her pocket. “Is this yours, Rose?” she asked.

 

“Mine? No, no, Amy. That isn't mine,” Rose stuttered as she recognized it as Amy's engagement ring.

 

“I found it in your pocket, Doctor. I noticed that the two of you don't wear rings. I thought maybe...” she trailed off, seemingly mesmerized by the ring in the box.

 

“No we don't. We have bonding bracelets that my people wore,” the Doctor told her as he held up his arm and shook the sleeve out of the way to reveal the silver band around his wrist.

 

Rose lifted her sleeve so that Amy could look at hers more closely. She had to move the vortex manipulator out of the way as well. “They sort of attach together when they get close. It strengthens our connection,” Rose told her with a tap to her head to indicate the telepathic bond that they shared with each other.

 

“So, what's the ring for then?” Amy asked as she ran a finger over the circular markings on Rose's bracelet.

 

“It's... well, it belongs to a friend of ours. We, umm, lost someone,” Rose fumbled for an excuse.

 

“It's weird. I feel, I don't know, something,” Amy told them as she stared at the ring, seeming on the verge of unexplained tears.

 

The Doctor moved to kneel in front of them, abandoning his work on the Pandorica for a moment. “People fall out of the world sometimes, but they always leave traces,” he said quietly. “Little things we can't quite account for. Faces in photographs, luggage, half eaten meals, ...rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back.” He looked closely at Amy's face as she seemed to struggle with lost memories.

 

“Was she nice? Your friend?” Amy asked, suddenly turning back to Rose who had been hopefully holding her breath.

 

Rose sighed and nodded sadly, thinking of Rory and how much he loved Amy. Despite how much he hated the danger of their adventures, he would follow her anywhere.

 

“Remember that night that you flew away with us?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Of course I do,” Amy responded and smacked him on the shoulder playfully.

 

“And you asked why we were taking you and we said that it was because you were our friend. That was why Jamie wanted you with us, but there was more to it than that,” the Doctor admitted.

 

“What, so you had another reason?” she wondered.

 

“Your house,” the Doctor told her.

 

“My house,” Amy repeated, not sure what her house had to do with them taking her along.

 

“It was too big. Too many empty rooms. Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?” the Doctor asked her.

 

Rose tried to follow what her husband was saying about Amy. It was unusual for him to notice things like that before she did, but it was true. Amy's house was huge and the only people living there were her and her aunt. She never mentioned what had happened to her parents and they had never asked, just assuming that she would tell them if she wanted to talk about it. But if there had ever been more people in that big house, wouldn't it be painful to stay there? Wouldn't they want to go somewhere away from the memories and more appropriately sized for the small family?

 

They were all startled from their thoughts by an energy weapon firing past them and exploding on the wall behind. The three of them quickly leapt behind the Pandorica, allowing some protection for them.

 

“What is that?” Amy asked fearfully.

 

“Ok, I need to get a proper look. Got to draw its fire, give it a target,” the Doctor informed them.

 

“Don't you dare,” Rose told him and crouched into a forward roll. After a few rather impressive flips, she dove back into their hiding place behind the large, black box, and into the trembling arms of her husband.

 

“That was absolutely magnificent and you nearly frightened me into regeneration,” he said as he clutched her against his chest tightly.

 

“Oh, you were planning to do the same thing. But I can do it with style,” she responded with a wink.

 

“So, what is it?” Amy interrupted before they started snogging each other.

 

“The arm of a Cyberman. Apparently operating without a body or brain,” Rose replied.

 

“And what's a Cyberman?” Amy questioned.

 

“Oh, sort of part man, part robot. The organic part must have died out years ago. Now the robot part is looking for, well... fresh meat,” the Doctor answered.

 

“What, us?” Amy gasped incredulously.

 

“It's just like being an organ donor, except you're alive and sort of screaming. I need to get round behind it. Think you could do that again, love?” the Doctor suggested with a wave of admiration and lust flowing through their bond.

 

“I'm on it. Make it count, Doctor,” Rose announced and began a series of cartwheels towards another area of cover from the blasts.

 

The Doctor dashed to the other side and dove on top of the arm. Using his sonic, he managed to deactivate it.

 

“Doctor?” Amy called from behind the Pandorica.

 

“Did you get it, love?” Rose asked.

 

“Scrambled its circuits, but stay where you are, it could be bluffing,” he warned as he examined it further.

 

“Bluffing? It's an arm!” Amy said incredulously and started moving out from behind the large, black box.

 

“I said stay where you are!” he warned.

 

Amy screamed when she was suddenly attacked by the metal cords of a Cyberhead from behind.

 

“Amy! Oh my god!” Rose shouted and ran back towards her.

 

“Amy!” the Doctor yelled, but before he could move, he was suddenly given a debilitating electrical shock from the arm he was holding and fell unconscious.

 

Rose shrieked as she felt the surge of pain from her husband, but tried to focus on helping Amy who was being pulled towards the open mask of a Cyberman. A blackened head had fallen out of the mask when it had first opened and then it snapped open and closed threateningly before tugging Amy closer.

 

Rose grabbed one of the torches off of the wall and smacked the Cyberhead violently. It fell off of Amy and skidded across the floor. Rose helped support Amy as she panted heavily and tried to calm herself from the attack. Seeing that she was alright, Rose went to check on the Doctor where he was still unconscious on the floor.

 

“You will be assimilated,” the Cyberhead announced suddenly as it crawled back towards Amy and fired a small dart at her neck.

 

“Yeah? You and whose body?” Amy snarked.

 

“Shit,” Rose added when the body of a Cyberman walked into the room. It was missing a head and an arm, but could easily reattach those.

 

Amy appeared to have been drugged by the dart that struck her and was wobbling slightly as she backed away from the advancing robot. Rose ran back to her side and helped her to get into a side chamber where they shut the doors tightly to stop it from reaching them temporarily. They could hear it banging against the doors but it suddenly stopped when the tip of a sword pierced through the door.

 

“Doctor? Was that you?” Rose called and swung the door open.

 

The Cyberman was stuck to the door where the sword had skewered it, and a Centurion was standing before them. Rose gasped at the sight of the familiar man and gaped speechlessly at him.

 

“Who, who are you?” Amy asked woozily.

 

“Hello, Amy,” Rory said as he removed his helmet.

 

The sedative that was flowing through her system took over at that moment and she collapsed. Rory quickly moved to catch her before she hit the floor and laid her gently on a large stone surface.

 

“But... but...” Rose stuttered and pointed at Rory.

 

“Amy? Where's Amy?” the Doctor shouted and ran into the room.

 

“She's fine, Doctor. Just unconscious,” Rory replied.

 

“Ok, yes, she's sedated, that's all,” the Doctor said as he checked her over, then turned to check on his wife. “How about you, Rose? Everything alright?” he asked.

 

“He... he... but...” Rose struggled with putting together a coherent sentence.

 

“Oh, don't worry. Half an hour, she'll be fine. Ok, Romans. Good. I was just wishing for Romans. Jamie and River, fantastic. How many?” the Doctor babbled as he looked back toward the Centurion.

 

“Fifty men up top, volunteers. What about that thing?” Rory responded calmly.

 

“Fifty? You're not exactly a legion,” the Doctor complained.

 

“But, Doctor...” Rose managed to say.

 

“Jamie was very persuasive, but it's a tough sell,” Rory said in answer to the Doctor's argument.

 

“Yes, I know that, Rory. I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious. But we need everything we can get. Ok, Cyberweapons. This is basically a sentry box, so headless wonder here was a sentry. Probably got himself duffed up by the locals. Never underestimate a Celt,” the Doctor continued rambling.

 

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted.

 

“What is it, love? Are you injured? Did I miss something?” the Doctor asked worriedly as he looked her over again and she continued to stare at Rory dumbstruck.

 

“Yeah, I think you might have,” Rory suggested.

 

The Doctor scanned Rose with his sonic worriedly and squinted at the results. “This says you're fine. What's the matter dear?” he insisted, then turned suddenly to follow her gaze back toward the Centurion. The Doctor blinked confusedly at Rory for a moment. He prodded him, just to be sure that he was actually standing there. “Hello again.”

 

“Hello,” Rory replied simply.

 

“But...” Rose said again.

 

“How've you been?” the Doctor asked him.

 

“Good. Yeah. Good. I mean, Roman,” Rory answered.

 

“But...” Rose repeated.

 

“Getting to that, dear. Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died,” the Doctor said, finally voicing the issue that had been plaguing Rose's mind for several minutes.

 

“Yeah, I know. I was there,” Rory responded.

 

“You died and then you were erased from time. You didn't just die, you were never born at all. You never existed,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Erased? What does that mean?” Rory wondered.

 

“She...” Rose began and pointed toward the unconscious Amy.

 

“How can you be here?” the Doctor finally asked.

 

“I don't know. It's kind of fuzzy,” Rory told them.

 

“Fuzzy?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting. Did she miss me?” he asked as he turned back towards his unconscious fiancée.

 

“Oh, Rory,” Rose sighed sadly.

 

There was a sudden rumbling noise coming from the Pandorica and they all ran to see what was happening. The Doctor scanned the large box again with his sonic.

 

“What is it? What's happening?” Rory questioned.

 

“The final phase. It's opening,” the Doctor replied.

 

“Well, I guess we're going to find out what creatures are so frightening that they require a cage like that,” Rose commented.

 

Rose's mobile rang suddenly and she tossed it to her husband when she saw that it was Jamie calling.

 

“Jamie? What have you got?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Well, you're surrounded. Just checking to see if you'd worked out a plan yet,” James told him.

 

“Yes. Now, I need you to go get the TARDIS and bring her here. I need equipment,” he replied and hung up the phone, flipping it back in the air to his wife. “What are you? They're all here, all of them, all for you. What could you possibly be?” he asked the mysterious box.

 

The Doctor started pulling items from his trans-dimensional pockets and assembling a transmitter of some kind.

 

“What's the plan, love?” Rose asked him.

 

“First line of defence for me is always words. So, I need to have a little chat with all our friends out there,” the Doctor told her as he snapped the last component onto his device. 

 

Pulling Rose along with him, they climbed the stairs, followed closely by Rory. The Doctor climbed on top of a stone table and helped Rose up to stand beside him. Above them, the ships raced across the sky, light swirling as they scared the natives. The Doctor turned on his transmitter and it almost fumbled out of his hands.

 

“Sorry, sorry, dropped it. Hello, Stonehenge!” he shouted. “Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe. But, bad news, everyone. Because guess who? The Doctor and the Wolf, ha!” he told them all with a triumphant laugh.

 

He squeezed Rose tightly against his side and sent her as much reassurance as he could manage through their bond. She could feel that he was afraid. Rose was terrified, especially knowing that he was unsure of himself, but they'd gotten out of catastrophes before, despite the odds.

 

“Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING!” he shouted. Every ship in the sky suddenly came to a dead stop before he continued his address. “The question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer, we do. Next question. Who's coming to take it from us?” he asked and stared at the sky with his arms widely inviting someone to dare try.

 

“Come on!” he shouted. “Look at us! Same as always, no plan, no back up, no weapons worth a damn. Oh, but here we are, just waiting for you. So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceships, with all your silly little guns, and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you. Add into that, my very own goddess, who took down the Dalek Emperor all by herself. And then... and then, do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first,” the Doctor told them.

 

They all watched as many of the ships overhead retreated into deep space. The threat was definitely not gone, but it was likely delayed and slightly depleted. 

 

“That'll keep them squabbling for half an hour. Romans!” the Doctor said happily as he jumped down from the platform where they had been standing and helped his wife down with his hands on her waist.

 


	30. The Pandorica Opens: Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end of the series 5 rewrite. There will be a series 6 one as well, but a bit down the road. Please review!!

Chapter Thirty – The Pandorica Opens: Part Three

 

 

River and James got to the TARDIS as quickly as their horses would carry them. As soon as they were inside, James set to work at the console. He thought it would be a good idea to take her back in time a bit to eliminate the time it took them to ride back to where she had landed earlier.

 

“Anything I can do to help?” River asked.

 

“Do you know how to fly her? I've never thought to ask at any point in your timeline,” James replied.

 

“Nope. But you could start teaching me now,” she told him with a smile.

 

“I suppose I could...” he began, but the TARDIS suddenly lurched and the lights in the console room flickered. “What in the world? What's the matter, Old Girl?” he asked and stroked the time rotor comfortingly.

 

Both of them were thrown around the console as they held tightly to the railings.

 

“What's happening, James?” River shouted.

 

“I don't know, she's never done this before. It's almost as if an outside force has hijacked her,” he responded.

 

Everything settled and the TARDIS landed as if nothing was wrong at all. James checked all of the settings and flicked a few switches to finalize the landing sequence. The scanner screen was stubbornly blank, however.

 

“Just take it easy, Old Girl,” James said to the time ship. He grabbed River's hand and pulled her with him towards the doors. “Come on, love, let's go see what dad needs.”

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

The Doctor, Rose, and Rory made their way back down to the Pandorica, leaving the Roman soldiers keeping watch above them.

 

“They're still out there. What do we do now?” Rory asked.

 

“If I can stop whatever's in this box getting out, then they'll go home,” the Doctor replied and noticed that Amy was awake. She was heading towards them, but didn't pay any attention to Rory, confirming that she still had no idea who he was to her. He glanced at Rose, hoping she would have some idea how to handle this.

 

“Right,” Rory said, allowing his memories as a Roman soldier to take over in planning defences.

 

“Rory, this is going to be a bit difficult to explain,” Rose told him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder.

 

Amy walked sleepily past Rose and Rory toward the Doctor. “Oh, my head,” she complained.

 

The Doctor checked her over and decided that she would be fine. “Just your basic knock-out drops. Get some fresh air, you'll be fine,” he told her and gestured for her to go up out of the caves they were in.

 

“Is it safe up there?” she asked.

 

“Not remotely, but it's fresh,” the Doctor replied and moved back to the Pandorica, hoping to stop this thing before it could get out.

 

“Fine. You coming, Rose?” she asked, then noticed the other person in the room. “Oh, you're the guy, yeah? The one who did the swordy thing.”

 

“Yeah,” Rory gasped as he stared at her.

 

“Well, thanks for the swording. Nice swording,” Amy told him with a pat to his metal breast plate.

 

“No problem. My men are up there. They'll look after you,” he called after her as she started up the stairs.

 

“Good. Love a Roman,” Amy mumbled.

 

Rory turned panic-stricken eyes toward Rose. “She doesn't remember me. How can she not remember me?”

 

“Calm down, Rory. The light from the crack that was near you when you died, it erased you from existence. You were never born. But I'm sure we'll find a way to fix this,” Rose told him reassuringly.

 

“The cracks are everywhere now. Get too close to them and you can fall right out of the universe,” the Doctor told them.

 

“So I fell through a crack and now I was never born,” Rory repeated to be sure that he understood what they were telling him.

 

“Basically,” the Doctor confirmed.

 

“Well, how did I end up here?” Rory questioned.

 

“I don't know, you shouldn't have. What happened? From your point of view, what physically happened?” the Doctor asked, trying to work this odd piece into an already confusing puzzle.

 

“I was in the cave, with you and Rose and Amy. I was dying, and then I was just here, a Roman soldier. A proper Roman. Head full of Roman stuff. A whole other life, just here like I'd woken up from a dream. I started to think it was a dream, your family and Amy and Leadworth. And then today, in the camp, the men were talking about the visitors. The girl with the red hair. I thought you'd come back for me. But she can't even remember me!” Rory explained while pacing the room and becoming progressively more upset.

 

“Oh, shut up,” the Doctor interrupted.

 

“What?” Rory asked indignantly.

 

“Rose, give him that red box in your pocket,” he said with a smirk. “Go get her.”

 

Rose handed him the little red box that Amy had been looking at earlier. He stared at it dumbly as Rose straightened his armour. “She may not remember you, but some part of her does. Deep down inside. We catch her once in a while, just staring into the distance, like she's reaching for a memory that she can't quite grasp. It's in there. You are the only one that has any chance of pulling it free,” she told him.

 

“But I don't understand. Why am I here?” Rory asked, confused by his continued existence.

 

“Because you are. The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles,” he replied with a loving glance at his wife. “Nine hundred years, and I've only seen it once or twice,” he admitted, thinking of his incredible wife and son. They were such an amazing gift. “I've got mine, now you go get yours. She's Amy and she's surrounded by Romans. I'm not sure history can take it.”

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

James and River exited the TARDIS to find themselves in Amy's backyard. They looked at each other in confusion, then back at the TARDIS.

 

“Why did you bring us here?” James questioned and started towards the dark house in front of them.

 

“James, look! Something's been here,” River called to him from some oddly shaped scorch marks on the grass.

 

James scanned the marks with his sonic to try and determine exactly what had been there. “I don't recognize these energy readings. It could be anyone,” he told her and they went through the back door of the house. 

 

There was no need to unlock it this time, since the door was hanging crookedly from the hinges, half broken. The house was deserted and there was damage everywhere they turned. James led River up to Amy's room, but she didn't seem to need the guidance, as if she already knew this house very well.

 

“Have you been here before, River?” he wondered.

 

“Spoilers, love,” she answered quickly as they looked through Amy's room.

 

The tables were covered in little crafts and drawings. They all featured his family and their TARDIS. He recalled Jeff's grandmother mentioning cartoons she had drawn when she was little, and here they were. That whole day seemed almost like a dream now. His dad had regenerated, they crashed in her backyard, fixed the crack in young Amelia's wall, then came back to find a grown up Amy being attacked by Prisoner Zero. She had waited for them to return for so long and now everything felt like it was falling apart. A tear fell down his cheek as he looked at a picture of Amelia holding his hand, his parents smiling next to the two of them and the TARDIS on the other side.

 

“Oh, James,” River sighed and wrapped him in her arms. She looked around at the scattered books on the bedside table. “Oh no.”

 

“What? What is it?” he asked as he turned to see what she was looking at.

 

River dashed over to the table to hand him the book entitled 'The Story of Roman Britain.' The image on the cover showed a picture of the exact man they had just faced as Commander of the soldiers they sent to help at Stonehenge.

 

“What?” James gasped and started flicking through the book. He came across a photo wedged into the pages. The photo was of Rory, dressed as a Roman Centurion. It looked to be a halloween costume of some kind.

 

“And look at this, love,” River said as she showed him another book. This one was about Pandora's Box, but the picture of the box on the cover looked exactly like the Pandorica.

 

“How is this possible? It's like... it's like reality was suddenly based on Amy's thoughts,” James said, his eyes darting back and forth in thought. “Bring these, let's get back to the TARDIS and call my mum and dad,” he told her and ran down the stairs.

 

James burst into the TARDIS with River right behind him. He dialled his mum's mobile and Rose quickly answered, “Jamie, where are you?”

 

“Oh, mum, this is all such a mess,” he told her despondently.

 

“Calm down, what's the matter?” she responded and the phone was quickly snatched from her hands by the Doctor.

 

“Where's the TARDIS, Jamie, I need that equipment,” the Doctor interrupted.

 

“Dad, just listen for a minute, please. The TARDIS took us somewhere else. I don't know how, it was like some other force took her over for a minute and then we landed. But we landed in Amy's backyard instead of back with you,” he explained.

 

“Alright,” the Doctor replied and placed his hand over his eyes as he tried to process all of the various problems facing them. He really didn't need one more to add to the list of things that needed fixing. “So, just fly her back here now, or is there something else going on?”

 

“Something came here. There were landing marks on the grass and her house is both empty and trashed. But the really worrying thing, is that the Roman soldiers that we sent you, the exact faces of them are pictured in a book in her room. Not only that, but her book about Pandora's Box has a picture on the cover that exactly matches the Pandorica down to the pattern on the sides,” James told him worriedly as he entered the coordinates again to get to Stonehenge. He went so far as to latch onto the phone signal he was speaking through, just to get a solid lock this time.

 

“Ok, ok... so, something's been to her house. They could have used her psychic residue. Structures can hold memories, that's why houses have ghosts. They could've taken a snapshot of Amy's memories, but why?” the Doctor rambled as he worked through the available facts.

 

“Then who are the Romans? If they took them from her memories, who are they? And, dad, there's a photo in this book of Rory dressed as a centurion,” James interrupted.

 

“Yeah. Well, we happen to have a Rory here, alive and well. So, these Romans are projections or duplicates,” he reasoned.

 

“Well, they seemed awfully real when we were there. They didn't seem to be against us at all and even River's hallucinogenic lipstick worked on them. Not that I was particularly happy about that,” James explained with a glare at his future wife.

 

“They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated,” the Doctor replied.

 

“But what happens when they are activated? What will happen to Rory?” James questioned.

 

“Why would they do that? What's it all for? This doesn't make any sense,” the Doctor wondered, not answering the question about Rory, probably because he didn't know that either.

 

Suddenly, the TARDIS engines started up on their own. James ran around the console, trying to regain control when he saw that the coordinates he had entered and even the lock on his mother's phone were gone from the screen.

 

“Dad, we have a problem,” he shouted into the phone.

 

“What's happening?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Something is wrong with the TARDIS! It's like something else is controlling it again,” he replied and violently threw a few more switches as he fought with the ship.

 

“Where are you? What's the date reading?” the Doctor questioned, the worry in his voice apparent.

 

“Oh god. Dad, it's... it's the 26th of June, 2010,” James replied, though his throat nearly closed around the words.

 

“Get out of there! Any other time zone! Do you hear me, Jamie? Get away from that date! You know what this is all about!” the Doctor shouted through the phone.

 

“I can't break her free, dad!” James argued.

 

“Then shut her down. Shut down everything. If you can get her to land, then we might be able to prevent the explosion and stop the cracks from ever happening,” the Doctor told him frantically.

 

“I'm trying, but the cracks already existed, dad. If they didn't, then we never would have met Amy to begin with,” James replied. He could feel it in the timelines. This explosion, as horrible as it was, and knowing that somehow he and River could survive despite it all, was fixed.

 

“Don't worry about that now, just shut it down!” his father shouted.

 

“It's stopped, we're somewhere,” James told him when the engines ceased pulsing.

 

“Just get out of there for now,” the Doctor said and the line went dead.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

“Jamie? Jamie!” the Doctor called into the mobile, but the call had dropped. He shoved the phone into his pocket as the Pandorica began to open. “Well, now. Ready to come out, are we?” he said confidently and took Rose's hand.

 

They turned at the sound of people entering the chamber. The Romans faced them intimidatingly along with representatives of many alien races. Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, Judoon, Silurians, even a Hoix were among the many races in attendance. 

 

“Plastic Romans. Duplicates, driven by the Nestene Consciousness, eh? Deep cover, but what for? What are you doing? What's in there, eh? What's coming out?” the Doctor asked.

 

“The Pandorica is ready,” one of the Romans announced.

 

“Ready? Ready for what?” Rose questioned, holding tighter to the Doctor's hand.

 

“You have been scanned, assessed, understood, Doctor. You and the Abomination,” a tall, white Dalek informed them.

 

“Scanned? Scanned by what, a box?” the Doctor questioned.

 

“Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated,” the Dalek continued.

 

“The Pandorica is ready,” a Sontaran Commander announced confidently.

 

“Ready for what?” Rose repeated.

 

“Ready for you,” the Dalek replied and rolled towards them intimidatingly.

 

The Doctor and Rose were both seized by the Romans and dragged toward the Pandorica as it opened completely, revealing two seats with visible restraints. Rose screamed as her eyes suddenly flashed with golden light.

 

“You will not!” shouted the furious double voice of the Bad Wolf. 

 

The two soldiers that had been holding her dissolved into golden dust as she threw them away from her sides. The Doctor's confidence was rapidly returning until a large dart suddenly struck Rose's stomach and she collapsed to the ground, the light fading from her eyes instantly.

 

“Rose!” the Doctor shouted as he wrestled even harder against the arms restraining him.

 

The Sontaran Commander was standing rigidly, holding a gun that had clearly fired the offending dart. “We know that she cannot be killed. But she can be contained,” he said arrogantly.

 

“What?” the Doctor gasped as more of the soldiers picked up the unconscious body of his wife and secured her in one of the chairs of the Pandorica. She wasn't dead. They somehow knew something about Rose that he didn't yet. She wasn't dead.

 

“You lot, working together. An alliance. How is that possible?” the Doctor demanded as they pulled him toward the other chair. 

 

“The cracks in the skin of the universe,” the Dalek responded.

 

“All reality is threatened,” the Sontaran added.

 

“All universes will be deleted,” a Cyberman concluded.

 

“What? And you've come to me for help?” the Doctor asked, still confused by what was happening around him.

 

“No. We will save the universe from you!” the Sontaran shouted angrily.

 

“From me?” the Doctor questioned as he was forced to sit in the chair and the various restraints were closed around him.

 

“All projections correlate. All evidence concurs. The Doctor will destroy the universe,” the Cyberman explained.

 

“No, no, no. You've got it wrong,” the Doctor argued, pulling fiercely against his restraints.

 

“The Pandorica was constructed to ensure the safety of the Alliance,” the Cyberman continued.

 

“A scenario was devised from the memories of your companion,” the white Dalek told him.

 

“A trap the Doctor and his Wolf could not resist,” the Sontaran added.

 

“The cracks in time are the work of the Doctor. It is confirmed,” the Dalek announced.

 

“No. No, no, no, not me, the TARDIS. And I'm not in the TARDIS, am I?” the Doctor argued, trying to make them see reason.

 

“Only the Doctor and the Abomination can pilot the TARDIS,” the Dalek replied.

 

“Stop calling her that! And please, listen to me!” the Doctor shouted. “Total event collapse! Every sun will supernova at every moment in history. The whole universe will never have existed if you don't let me fix it!”

 

“Seal the Pandorica,” the Cyberman ordered and the sides of the box began to close.

 

“No! Please, listen to me! The TARDIS is exploding right now and I'm the only one who can stop it! Listen to me!” he shouted desperately.

 

With a deafening thud, the box sealed around the Doctor and his wife.

 


	31. The Big Bang: Part One

Chapter Thirty-One – The Big Bang: Part One

 

 

“Sealed inside this box at the end of the universe and you aren't even awake to witness it with me, my love,” the Doctor said to himself. “The way these stupid seats are arranged, I can't even look at your beautiful face. I've saved the universe so many times. You've saved it a few times yourself. It would figure that our luck would run out at some point, eh? The most feared creatures in the universe? Are we? That isn't exactly the legacy that I wanted to leave behind. Although, since the universe is ending, I don't suppose it really matters, do you?”

 

Before he could spiral any further into his pool of melancholy self-deprecation, the walls of the Pandorica hissed and opened once more. The Doctor looked confusedly at the tongue-in-teeth grin of his wife where she stood outside the Pandorica.

 

“What?” the Doctor squeaked and tried to look over his shoulder at his unconscious wife that he was sure was restrained behind him.

 

“Yes, love. I'm still there,” she told him and looked at her past self unhappily. “Ick! Do I always drool when I'm sleeping?” she asked and scrunched up her nose as she used her sonic to release his restraints.

 

“You are absolutely adorable when you're sleeping and completely gorgeous right now! How are you here?” he asked as he dove into her arms.

 

“Well, you sent me from the future. You left a little message for yourself inside my head. I'm not sure how that works,” she told him.

 

“Ooh, I've got a future! That's nice. Hang on,” he said and closed his eyes as he placed his fingers over Rose's temples. Finding the message that his future self had planted into her mind, he opened his eyes and pulled her face to his for a kiss. “Perfect. Now, you head on back, love and we'll take care of getting ourselves to where you came from,” he told her.

 

“Verb tenses are always fun with you around, Doctor,” Rose said with a shake of her head and she pressed the button to return her to the last place she was.

 

Rory was standing nearby with a rather confused look on his face. “What?” he asked.

 

“Ok, things to do, universes to save!” the Doctor announced as he clapped his hands and looked at the fossilized Dalek that was frozen in place.

 

“Yeah, ok. Umm, what are they?” Rory asked, never having seen a Dalek before.

 

“History has collapsed. Whole races have been deleted from existence. These are just like after-images. Echoes. Fossils in time. The footprints of the never-were,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Er, what does that mean?” Rory asked, clearly not understanding the Doctor's babble about echoes and footprints.

 

“Total event collapse. The universe literally never happened,” the Doctor simplified.

 

“So, how can we be here? What's keeping us safe?” Rory asked.

 

“Nothing. Eye of the storm, that's all. We're just the last light to go out. Amy. Where's Amy?” the Doctor asked suddenly.

 

Rory led him outside where Amy was lying on the ground. 

 

“I killed her,” Rory admitted sadly.

 

“Oh, Rory,” the Doctor sighed as he looked over his friend's body.

 

“Doctor, what am I?” Rory asked, knowing that some kind of force had taken him over and made him shoot his fiancée.

 

“You're a Nestene duplicate. A lump of plastic with delusions of humanity,” he replied dismissively.

 

“But I'm Rory now. Whatever was happening, it's stopped. I'm Rory,” the Centurion argued.

 

“That's software talking,” the Doctor responded coldly as he continued checking Amy.

 

“Can you help her? Is there anything you can do?” Rory asked, desperately hoping that Amy could be brought back.

 

“Yeah, probably, if I had the time,” the Doctor told him and started walking away.

 

“The time?!” Rory shouted after him.

 

“All of creation has just been wiped from the sky. Do you know how many lives now never happened? All the people who never lived? Your girlfriend isn't more important than the whole universe,” the Doctor baited him without looking back.

 

Even knowing it was coming from the message that he had left for himself in Rose's mind, it was still a bit of a shock when Rory spun him around violently and punched the Doctor across the face.

 

“She is to me!” Rory yelled.

 

“Woo! Welcome back, Rory Williams! Sorry. Had to be sure. Hell of a gun-arm you're packing there. Right, we need to get her downstairs. And take that look off your plastic face. You're getting married in the morning,” the Doctor said excitedly as he moved to pick up Amy.

 

They worked together to get Amy down the stairs and seated her inside the Pandorica with Rose.

 

“So, you've got a plan, then? Are you leaving Rose in there with her?” Rory asked.

 

“Bit of a plan, yeah. Rose isn't ready to wake up yet, but she will be when Amy does. Memories are more powerful than you think, and Amy Pond is not an ordinary girl. Grew up with a time crack in her wall. The universe pouring through her dreams every night. The Nestenes took a memory print of her and got a bit more than they bargained for, like you. Not just your face, but your heart and your soul,” the Doctor told him as he settled Amy into the restraints. They would hold her in place until the machine did its work to restore her.

 

He placed his hands against her temples and left a message in her mind, then moved to leave another for Rose. This time, one that she would hear herself. He removed the vortex manipulator from his wife's wrist (lucky thing that James had left it with them). “I'm leaving them messages for when they wake up, so they know what's happening,” he explained to Rory, then backed out of the Pandorica and resealed it with his sonic.

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing?” Rory shouted.

 

“I'm saving her. This box is the ultimate prison. You can't even escape by dying. It forces you to stay alive,” the Doctor told him.

 

“But she's already dead,” Rory argued.

 

“Well, she's mostly dead. The Pandorica can stasis-lock her that way. Now, this doesn't work quite as well as nanogenes, so it's going to need a sample of her living DNA and it'll restore her,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Where's it going to get that?” Rory asked.

 

“In about two thousand years,” the Doctor replied as he started to program the vortex manipulator to take him into the future.

 

“You mean they're going to be in that box for two thousand years?” Rory questioned as he stared at the Pandorica.

 

“Yeah, but we're taking a shortcut. Jamie's vortex manipulator. I hate using these things, but with only one TARDIS for the whole family, what can you do?” the Doctor told him.

 

“So, hang on. The future's still there, then? Our world,” Rory wondered.

 

“A version of it. Not quite the one you know. Earth alone in the sky. Let's go and have a look. Put your hand there and we'll set all this right,” the Doctor said, holding up his arm with the manipulator ready to activate.

 

“But, what about them?” Rory asked, looking back at the black box forlornly.

 

“They'll be fine. Nothing can get into this box. Do you think I would leave my wife in there for two thousand years if I thought anything could possibly happen to her?” the Doctor said reassuringly.

 

“Rose got it open,” he argued.

 

“Yes, but it would take sonic technology at a very specific frequency to unlock it. I'm probably the only person in the universe that would know how. Especially since reality is currently collapsing,” the Doctor explained.

 

“This box needs a guard. I killed the last one,” Rory said.

 

“No, Rory. They won't even feel it. They'll be in stasis the whole time,” he insisted.

 

“Will they be safer if I stay? Look me in the eye and tell me they wouldn't be safer. I know you want Rose safe and I want Amy safe and alive in my arms,” Rory said.

 

“Two thousand years, Rory. You won't even sleep. You'd be conscious every second. It would drive you mad,” the Doctor continued to argue. “Of course I want Rose safe, but I told you, they are safe.”

 

“Will they be safer? Answer me!”

 

“Yes. Obviously,” he admitted. He could have taken Rose out to bring with him, but it would be difficult to do everything that he needed to do quickly with her unconscious. His message from the future had been clear that he should leave Rose in the box with Amy, so he was taking his own advice.

 

“Then how could I leave her?” Rory asked, clearly only thinking of Amy now.

 

“Why do you have to be so... human?” the Doctor asked the frustratingly stubborn man before him.

 

“Because right now, I'm not,” Rory replied logically.

 

The Doctor sighed. His message had mentioned that this might be a possibility, but that he should try to discourage Rory from doing this. “Listen to me,” he began. “This is the last bit of advice you're going to get in a very long time. You're living plastic, but you're not immortal. I have no idea how long you'll last. And you're not indestructible. Stay away from heat and radio signals when they come along. You can't heal, or repair yourself. Any damage is permanent. So, for god's sake, however bored you get, stay out of...” the Doctor babbled and cut himself off by pressing the activation button on the vortex manipulator.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

Rose awoke with a gasp and the message from her husband played inside her mind,  _“I'm coming, my love. Keep Amy from touching her younger self and both of you, rest as much as you can. It's time to save the universe again.”_

 

The restraints holding her arms, legs, and shoulders released and she tumbled out of the Pandorica, along with a very wobbly looking Amy. In front of them, was a startled looking little Amelia. Rose and Amy exchanged a look and Amy said to her younger self, “Ok, kid. This is where it gets complicated.”

 

“Are you two alright? Who are you?” Amelia asked.

 

“Oh, we're fine, sweetheart. Just need to rest a bit. We've been in stasis for about two thousand years. Leaves you a bit wobbly,” Rose replied and crawled over to scan Amy with her sonic. Seeing that she was fine, Rose scanned herself as well. The sedative seemed to have dissipated from her system.

 

“Where are we? Hang on. National Museum, right? I was here once when I was a little...” Amy said then looked at Amelia.

 

“Right. Very important thing that the Doctor told me, Amy, don't touch her,” Rose instructed.

 

“What? Why not?” Amy asked.

 

“I've done it once before and very, very bad things happen. The universe is already collapsing, we don't need any more paradoxes right now,” Rose replied.

 

Amy wandered over to a display telling the story of the Pandorica. It told the story of a Centurion guarding the box throughout history. The last sighting of the Centurion was in 1941 when he pulled the box out of a warehouse that was hit by a bomb during the Blitz. The display theorized that he died in the fire after saving the box that he had guarded for centuries. Rose wrapped an arm around her shoulder in support.

 

“Rory. Oh, Rory,” Amy cried softly.

 

“Exterminate!” came a shaky exclamation that interrupted their mourning suddenly.

 

“What's that?” little Amelia shouted.

 

They saw one of the petrified Daleks starting to move as its systems came back online. Rose huddled the two Amys slightly behind her, but did her best to keep them from touching. The Doctor materialized suddenly in front of them.

 

“...trouble. Oh, Ah! Rose! And two Amys. Complicated,” he said as he processed the current situation.

 

“Exterminate! Weapons systems restoring,” the Dalek announced ominously.

 

“Come along, Ponds!” the Doctor called, taking Amy's hand in one of his, Rose's in the other, and Rose held tightly to little Amelia's. 

 

He pulled them through several displays and past the barriers to jump through some models. He tumbled through one and ended up putting on the fez from a dummy along the way. Rose stared at the hat oddly as he continued to guide them away from the threatening alien.

 

“What are we doing?” Amy asked.

 

“Well, we are running into a dead end, where I'll have a brilliant plan, that basically involves not being in one,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Right. In your own time, love,” Rose replied with a nervous chuckle as they backed into a corner.

 

“What's going on?” called a security guard with a torch from the other side of the room.

 

“Get out of here. Go! Just run!” the Doctor shouted.

 

“Drop the device,” the Dalek ordered as it turned toward the guard.

 

“It's not a weapon. Scan it. It's not a weapon, and you don't have the power to waste,” the Doctor warned.

 

“Scans indicate intruder unarmed,” the Dalek announced and turned back towards the Doctor, Rose, Amy and Amelia.

 

“Do you think?” the guard said as he dropped the torch, his hand fell open and a familiar weapon blasted the Dalek in the eyestalk.

 

“Vision impaired! Vision...” the Dalek whined as it powered down once again.

 

“Amy!” the guard shouted.

 

“Rory!” Amy called back and ran into his waiting arms.

 

They whispered to each other and exchanged kisses. The Doctor moved to try and break them apart, but Rose grabbed the back of his collar to leave them alone. “Well, somebody didn't get out much for two thousand years,” the Doctor mumbled.

 

Little Amelia tugged on Rose's sleeve and asked, “I'm thirsty. Can I get a drink?”

 

“Oh, it's all mouths today, isn't it?” the Doctor complained.

 

“Rude, Doctor,” Rose chastised. “We'll find you a drink in just a minute, sweetheart.”

 

“The light,” the Doctor realized. “The light from the Pandorica, it must have hit the Dalek.”

 

The white light was still shining on the alien and as they stared at it, the Dalek started to move once again. “Out! Out! Out!” the Doctor ordered and ushered everyone out of the room.

 

Once they made it to the main entrance hallway, the Doctor shut the doors behind them and began looking around for something to brace them with. He pulled a mop from a nearby pail and stuck it between the door handles.

 

“So, two thousand years. How did you do?” the Doctor asked casually, still wearing the ridiculous fez.

 

“Kept out of trouble,” Rory replied.

 

“Oh! Now! Right! Now, Rose, I'm going to give you this,” the Doctor said as he turned to his wife and transferred the vortex manipulator from his wrist, back onto hers. “I'm going to plant a little message inside your head. You won't hear it, but past me will be able to open it. Use your sonic on setting three thousand, four hundred and thirty-one to open the Pandorica and get me out. Then, press this button to bring you straight back here,” the Doctor told her and pressed the activation button to send her back in time.

 

A few seconds passed for the Doctor, Rory and both Amys before Rose suddenly rematerialized shakily. The Doctor caught her as she wasn't used to travelling by manipulator, despite her time spent jumping universes so long ago with the Dimension Cannon. Rose licked her lips slightly from the kiss she had just received before coming back. “Thank you, that was lovely,” she said with a smile.

 

“Anytime,” he replied and gave her a quick kiss.

 

Rose looked down at little Amelia and asked, “How did you know to come here today?”

 

Amelia held up a pamphlet for the museum and a post-it note. The Doctor examined them briefly and said, “Brilliant. My handwriting. Ok.” He pulled a pamphlet from the rack nearby, a pad of post-its from a desk and snagged the vortex manipulator off of Rose's wrist. “Back in a flash.”

 

He reappeared a moment later with a cup, which he handed to Amelia saying, “There you go. Drink up.”

 

The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and started pulling her up the stairs with him.

 

“Where are we going?” Amy asked as she grabbed Rory's hand and pulled him along as well.

 

“The roof!” the Doctor called back over his shoulder.

 

Suddenly, a second Doctor appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a limp and scorched looking Rose.

 

“What?!” the Doctor gasped, pulling his Rose close to him.

 

The future Doctor dashed down the stairs and stopped next to the current Doctor. He whispered something in his ear, then kept running past them with Rose in his arms. The current Doctor stared blankly for a moment in thought before nodding and starting to climb the stairs again.

 

“Right, got twelve minutes. That's good,” the Doctor announced.

 

“Doctor, that Rose, was she ok?” Amy asked urgently.

 

“Of course, she'll be just fine. Now, to the roof,” he replied.

 

“But shouldn't we go and help him?” Amy asked.

 

“No. Now, we have got to hurry. Because history is collapsing all around us. We are at the eye of the storm, but it is closing, so come on!” he shouted and continued up the stairs.

 

Once they reached the roof, the Doctor started removing a satellite dish from the pole it was attached to with his sonic. 

 

“What are you doing?” Rory asked.

 

“Looking for the TARDIS,” the Doctor replied.

 

“The TARDIS? Is she nearby? I can't even hear her,” Rose asked worriedly. “Or... oh my god, Doctor, I can't feel Jamie!”

 

“I know, I know. Don't worry, Rose. We'll find them,” the Doctor told her soothingly.

 

“But, isn't the problem that the TARDIS exploded?” Rose asked him.

 

“Ok then, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS,” the Doctor answered as he finally released the dish and sonicked it a few times as he waved it through the air.

 

“I don't understand. So, the TARDIS blew up and took the universe with it. But why would it do that? How?” Amy asked.

 

“Good question for another day. The question for now is, total event collapse means that every star in the universe never happened. Not one single one of them ever shone. So, if all the stars that ever were are gone, then what is that?” the Doctor prompted as he pointed to the oddly glowing sphere in the sky.

 

“But that's the sun,” Rory argued.

 

“Is it? Well, here's the noise that sun is making right now,” the Doctor told them as he held the dish towards the 'sun' and amplified the sound with his sonic. The familiar sound of the TARDIS engines echoed through the air.

 

“Oh my god!” Rose gasped.

 

“That's my TARDIS burning up. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm,” the Doctor explained.

 

“Doctor, there's something else,” Rory told him. “There's a voice.”

 

“I can't hear anything,” Amy argued.

 

“Trust the plastic,” Rory retorted, pointing towards his head.

 

The Doctor adjusted the settings on his sonic and suddenly, the rest of them could hear the sound of Jamie's voice. “I'm so sorry, dad,” he cried, repeating over and over.

 

“Oh, Doctor, that's Jamie! We've got to get him out of there!” Rose pleaded as she grasped his jacket roughly.

 

“It must be like a recording or something,” Rory suggested.

 

“No, it's not. Of course, the emergency protocols. The TARDIS has sealed off the control room and put them into a time loop to save them. Jamie and River are right at the heart of the explosion,” the Doctor told them and wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders supportively.

 


	32. The Big Bang: Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter in my series five re-write. I really hope that you liked it. I only realized last night that when I originally posted this series, it wasn't copying the italics that I had used to indicate telepathic speech. I'm really sorry about that and I've fixed it now. There will be a series six and possibly beyond that rewrite in this set of stories, but it won't be right away. I've got a bunch of plot bunnies screaming for my attention that I'm going to get through first. So please review and let me know if you liked it. I've got ideas for this family all the way through to the 50th anniversary stuff and it would be great to know if you'd like to read it.

Chapter Thirty-Two – The Big Bang: Part Two

 

 

“ _I'm trying, but the cracks already existed, dad. If they didn't, then we never would have met Amy to begin with,” James replied. He could feel it in the timelines. This explosion, as horrible as it was, and knowing that somehow he and River could survive despite it all, was fixed._

 

“ _Don't worry about that now, just shut it down!” his father shouted._

 

“ _It's stopped, we're somewhere,” James told him when the engines ceased pulsing._

 

“ _Just get out of there for now,” the Doctor said and the line went dead._

 

“Dad? Dad!” James shouted into the phone, but he got no reply and threw it violently across the room. 

 

The TARDIS had stopped, so they needed to get outside before anything else could go wrong. He grabbed River's hand and ran for the doors, but they wouldn't open. He tried several settings on his sonic before the bolt finally flicked open. James and River each pulled on one of the doors, but they opened to a wall of solid concrete.

 

“I'm so sorry, dad,” James sobbed and he was immediately wrapped in River's arms.

 

There was a sudden flash of light.

 

The TARDIS had stopped, so they needed to get outside before anything else could go wrong. He grabbed River's hand and ran for the doors, but they wouldn't open. He tried several settings on his sonic before the bolt finally flicked open. James and River each pulled on one of the doors, but they opened to a wall of solid concrete.

 

“I'm so sorry, dad,” James sobbed and he was immediately wrapped in River's arms. 'Was that a time loop?' he thought.

 

There was a sudden flash of light.

 

The TARDIS had stopped, so they needed to get outside before anything else could go wrong. He grabbed River's hand and ran for the doors, but they wouldn't open. He tried several settings on his sonic before the bolt finally flicked open. James and River each pulled on one of the doors, but they opened to a wall of solid concrete.

 

“I'm so sorry, dad,” James sobbed and he was immediately wrapped in River's arms. 'We're trapped inside a time loop,' he decided.

 

There was a sudden flash of light.

 

The TARDIS had stopped, so they needed to get outside before anything else could go wrong. He grabbed River's hand and ran for the doors, but they wouldn't open. He tried several settings on his sonic before the bolt finally flicked open. 

 

“I'd say this is a little bit bigger than putting a scratch in your dad's car,” the Doctor said, suddenly interrupting the loop of events.

 

“Dad! Oh my god!” James shouted happily as he leapt into his father's arms.  


“Nothing to worry about. Come on,” the Doctor told them as he held out the vortex manipulator attached to his arm. James and River immediately placed their hands on it to be taken away from the exploding TARDIS.

 

They materialized on the roof, near the waiting Rose, Amy and Rory.

 

“Rory! Well, that explains... never mind,” James exclaimed before his mind could catch up that they hadn't been through the events of the pirate ship yet.

 

“Amy, Rose, and Rory,” River said in greeting.

 

“You know Rory?” James asked her with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Spoilers,” she replied with a smirk. “Now, I have questions, but number one is this. What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?” River asked the Doctor.

 

“It's a fez. I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool,” the Doctor replied and adjusted his bow tie.

 

“Please tell me you aren't keeping the fez,” Rose groaned and her husband turned to her with a pained look.

 

“What? You don't like it? But, Rose...” the Doctor began, but turned back in shock when he felt someone snatch the fez off of his head.

 

Amy tossed the offending accessory into the air and River drew her blaster to vapourize it. James could barely contain his laughter.

 

The Doctor pouted for a moment, but everyone's amusement died when they saw the Dalek rise up next to them, with an exclamation of, “Exterminate!”

 

“Run! Run! Move!” the Doctor shouted as he ushered them all back inside, leaving the Dalek outside, behind them. He leaned against the door, listening to be sure that it wasn't going to blast its way through the door.

 

“Dad, come on. We've..” James started.

 

“Shush,” he interrupted. “It's moving away. Finding another way in. It needs to restore its power before it can attack again. Now, that means we've got exactly four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity,” the Doctor explained.

 

“How do you know?” Rory asked.

 

“Because that's when it's due to kill Rose,” he said shortly and pulled his wife along behind him, expecting the rest to follow them.

 

“Kill?!” James squeaked. “What do you mean the Dalek is going to kill mum?” 

 

“Because I told myself. Now, never mind, how can that Dalek even exist? It was erased from time and then it came back. How?” the Doctor rambled as he continued to lead them back toward the Pandorica.

 

“You said it was the light from the Pandorica,” Rose said as calmly as she could manage having just been told that she was going to be killed by a Dalek. She had seen it, but she was sure that neither of the Doctors in that hallway would have been nearly so calm if she were actually dead.

 

“It's not a light, it's a restoration field, but yes, I called it a light. That light brought Amy back, restored her. Just like the nanogenes with little Jamie and the gas masks, remember? Life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh?” he reminisced, trying to bring a smile to his wife's face as he felt her rising panic. She rewarded him with a pained smile and he continued, “But, how could it bring back a Dalek when the Daleks have never existed?”

 

“Ok, tell us,” Amy prompted, knowing that this was his usual lead-in to proving how brilliant he was.

 

“When the TARDIS blew up, it caused a total event collapse. A time explosion. And that explosion blasted every atom in every moment of the universe. Except...” he told them.

 

“Except inside the Pandorica. The perfect prison,” James finished the sentence.

 

“And inside it, perfectly preserved, a few billion atoms of the universe as it was. In theory, you could extrapolate the whole universe from a single one of them, like, like cloning a body from a single cell. And we've got the bumper family pack,” the Doctor continued to explain.

 

“No, no. Too fast. I'm not getting it,” Rory interrupted.

 

“It doesn't matter, we don't need you to understand, Rory. We just need to fix it. So, how do we do that, dad? How do we restart the entire universe from those original atoms?” James questioned urgently, thrilled that they were finally finding the timeline that would lead them through to the future that River remembered and he had visited in crossing his parents' future.

 

“What if we give that restoration field a moment of infinite power? What if we can transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?” the Doctor suggested.

 

“That would be fantastic, dad, but how?” James asked insistently.

 

“We can't because it's completely impossible!” River interrupted.

 

“Well, it's a good thing the Doctor and I eat impossible for breakfast,” Rose told her with a confident smile. The smile turned to a pained gasp however, as she was hit with the blast from the Dalek behind her.

 

The Doctor caught his wife before she could hit the floor. He quickly checked their bond to find that she was holding on, but just barely. “Right. Going to need some more time to set things up,” he said as he keyed new coordinates into the vortex manipulator and disappeared with Rose in his arms.

 

“Where did they go? Where did he take her?” James shouted.

 

“Exterminate! Exterminate!” the Dalek shrieked at them.

 

“Come on, Jamie! We've got to get out of here!” Amy cried as she tried to pull him with them. Rory was tugging her away from the Dalek and she didn't want to leave her friend behind.

 

James stood there, staring at the Dalek that had shot his mother in rage. Pure fury flowed through his veins.

 

“Where did the Doctor go? Damn it, he could be anywhere,” River complained and tried to calm James as much as she could.

 

“He went downstairs. Twelve minutes ago,” Amy told them.

 

James turned to look at her quickly and nodded his understanding. “Get to the Pandorica. That's were they'll be. We'll meet you there soon,” he told Amy and Rory.

 

“Systems restoring. You will be exterminated,” the Dalek announced.

 

“We've got to move. That thing's coming back to life,” Rory shouted.

 

“Go on, you two,” James said dismissively and watched them run off down the hall. “May I borrow your blaster, love?” he asked River with a disturbing level of calm.

 

“Yeah,” she said softly and placed it in his hand.

 

“You will be exterminated!” the Dalek threatened.

 

“Oh, I don't think so. Your systems are still restoring. Your weapon isn't ready to fire yet and your shield density is compromised. I can kill you right now,” James replied as he adjusted the settings on River's blaster.

 

“Records indicate you will show mercy. You are the child of the Doctor,” the Dalek argued.

 

“Under normal circumstances, I would say that was an accurate assessment. However, you just shot my mother,” James said as fury swirled in his eyes. The hints in his eyes of his mother's hazel, disappeared to reveal only the piercing ice blue of his father's leather-clad incarnation. 

 

“Mercy,” the Dalek pleaded.

 

“Not a chance,” James responded and fired a shot straight into its eyestalk, causing the entire casing to explode.

 

James handed River back the weapon and started walking back toward the Pandorica. River followed quickly as she replaced the blaster to its holster on her hip. She had never seen him like this before. She was accustomed to James always being so sweet and loving. He took care of her after her world fell apart and put her back together again.

 

“Are you alright?” she asked tentatively.

 

“Alright? My mother was just shot by a Dalek and you're asking if I'm alright?” he shouted and she could suddenly see the tears pooled in the corners of his eyes.

 

River took his hand and wrapped her other arm around his shoulder. He buried his face in her neck as he accepted her support.

 

“You said you saw them after all of this. Was your mother there? Do you still remember all of it, with your mother alive?” River asked him.

 

“Yes! Yes, of course, you're right. If that timeline wasn't possible anymore, my memories of the events would have changed. Oh, you're brilliant, my love! Come on!” he exclaimed happily and pulled her with him back down the stairs toward the Pandorica. “Dad's got a plan and he's going to need our help!”

 

They finally found the others in the room with the Pandorica exhibit. Rose was sitting in one of the seats, still weak and slumped in the chair, but her eyes were slightly open. The Doctor was wiring the Pandorica to the vortex manipulator and Amy and Rory were standing nearby, questioning him.

 

“What is going on, Doctor?” Amy insisted.

 

Outside the windows and down the hallways leading from the room, a white light was shining brightly.

 

“Reality is collapsing in on us. This room is the only thing in existence right now, well, this room and an exploding TARDIS,” the Doctor told them.

 

“What do you need, dad? How can we help?” James interrupted, knowing that there wasn't much time left.

 

“I'm going to take the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion. That will spread the restoration field through all of time and space in one instant. Big Bang Two,” the Doctor told him.

 

“Right, ok. And what happens to us?” Amy asked, accepting that they knew what they were doing.

 

“We all wake up where we ought to be. None of this ever happens and we don't remember it,” River explained.

 

“And the Doctor and Rose? They'll be fine, right?” Amy questioned.

 

River led Amy and Rory away from the little family to give James and the Doctor a moment.

 

“We'll be at the heart of the explosion. So, all the cracks in time will close with us on the other side. Since that means that we never existed, you will only be around as long as there's a chance of getting us back. Now, listen carefully, Amy grew up with that time crack in her wall, her memories are powerful and if we can break through that... if we can get her to remember us despite all of this, then she can bring us back through. You will need to remind her somehow, without just showing yourself. I'll do my best to plant some reminders for her, but you will be the only one of us on the right side of the cracks to make that final push,” the Doctor explained hurriedly.

 

“And if I can get her to remember, then the timeline where I met you in the future and where River comes from, will work out properly. Time can be rewritten, but there's still a way through,” James responded, showing that he understood all of his father's teachings about timelines when he was younger.

 

“That's my Jamie,” he said with a sad smile as he ruffled his hair. “And don't think that we aren't going to have a chat about that 456 incident! Now, let me talk to Amy before I go.”

 

“Are you sure mum will be ok?” James asked.

 

“I'm sure. Not only do we have the restoration field here, but one of the Sontarans, before locking us in here, said that it was impossible to kill her. I'm not ready to test that theory for sure, but I certainly like hope,” he replied.

 

Amy approached to talk with the Doctor, as requested.

 

“Amy Pond. The girl who waited all night in your garden for her new friend and his amazing parents to return and whisk her away. Was it worth it?” he asked.

 

“Shut up. Of course it was,” she said.

 

“Do you remember a little while ago, when I hinted that there was a reason other than Jamie wanting you along, for taking you with us?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“It's not important right now,” Amy said dismissively.

 

“Oh, it's very important. Amy, your house was too big. That big, empty house, and just you,” the Doctor told her.

 

“And Aunt Sharon,” Amy added.

 

“Where were your mum and dad? Where was everybody who lived in that big house?” the Doctor prompted.

 

“I lost my mum and dad,” she answered.

 

“How? What happened to them? Where did they go?” the Doctor asked her.

 

“I... I don't...” Amy responded confusedly.

 

“It's ok, it's ok. Don't panic, it's not your fault,” the Doctor said soothingly.

 

“I don't even remember,” Amy admitted.

 

“There was a crack in time in the wall of your bedroom, and it's been eating away at your life for a long time now. Amy Pond, all alone. You won't need your imaginary friend and his magical parents anymore. You'll have your real family instead. Just try to remember your family when that bang happens and they'll be there,” he told her.

 

“How can I remember them if they never existed?” Amy argued.

 

“Because you're special. That crack in your wall, all that time, the universe pouring into your head. You brought Rory back. You can bring them back too. Your memory can bring just about anything back, Amy. You just remember and they'll be there,” he said with a smirk.

 

“But the three of you won't be,” Amy said as a tear fell down her cheek. She looked over at Rose, who was watching them sadly, not strong enough to speak.

 

The Doctor gave Rose a kiss, then sat himself in the chair behind her. He prepared the vortex manipulator and activated the controls to start closing the box around them.

 

“You'll have your family back. You won't need ours. Ha! Amy Pond, crying over us? Guess what?” he said before the Pandorica closed all the way.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“Gotcha.”

 

The black box sealed with a hiss and a thud before it disappeared completely.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

The Doctor and Rose gasped as they awoke, side by side on the floor of the console room. They turned to look at each other in surprise.

 

“Oh! Ok, we survived, then. I love it when we do that. Legs, yes. Bow tie, cool. I can buy a fez,” the Doctor commented as he checked himself over.

 

“No. No you won't,” Rose grumbled.

 

“Are you alright, love? Does it hurt anywhere?” he asked worriedly as he checked her over for any lingering signs of the Dalek blast.

 

“I feel alright. I mean, my head is still a little sore, but other than that, I think I'm fine. What did you mean when you said that I can't be killed?” Rose asked.

 

“I don't know for sure. The ones trapping us inside the Pandorica seemed to be under the impression that you could only be contained, not killed. Daleks know how to kill Time Lords, if they really wanted me out of the way, they could have just killed me, but none of them had a clue how to stop you, so they just imprisoned us both,” the Doctor told her as he helped her to her feet.

 

“Lyle beach. The beach is the best. Automatic sand,” they heard the voice of the Doctor say from around the corner.

 

The Doctor and Rose looked at each other then peeked around the corner to see what was happening.

 

“Oh, I love it there! I need to go find my bikini!” the other Rose said happily.

 

They turned away from the scene to figure out their situation. “That was last week, when we went to Space Florida. We're rewinding. Our time stream is unraveling as the cracks are closing,” the Doctor reasoned.

 

Rose held his hands in hers as a light flashed around them and they found themselves back on the Byzantium. They saw Rose working on Amy's injured ankle with her sonic as the Doctor, Jamie and River walked off with Octavian following them.

 

Another flash of light brought them to Amy's garden. She was sleeping on the ground in the backyard of her house. She had her coat on and a little suitcase. Amelia was ready for her trip away from this place, not knowing that she would have to wait a very long time for it to begin.

 

“How are we here, Doctor? If this is our timeline reversing, we weren't here at this point,” Rose wondered.

 

“You're... right. I'm not sure. But, I'm not about to waste an opportunity,” he admitted and picked up the little girl to bring her inside.

 

They took off her coat and tucked her into bed, both of them remembering a time when they used to do just that for Jamie. They hugged then and sat down next to her bed.

 

“When you wake up, Amelia, you'll have a mum and dad. You won't even remember our little family crashing into your yard. Well, you might remember a little, but it'll be like a story in your head. But that's ok. We're all stories in the end,” he said and kissed the back of Rose's hand. “Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know? It was the best. The daft old man who stole a magic box and ran away. The lovely girl who decided to run with him, forever. And their amazing little boy, who proved himself every single day to be just as incredible in his own right. Did I ever tell you that I stole that box? Well, I _borrowed_ it. I was always going to take it back. Oh, that box. Amy, you'll dream about that box. It'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time. Brand new and ancient, and the bluest blue ever. And the times we had, eh? Would have had. Never had. In your dreams, they'll still be there. The cracks are closing, but they can't close completely until Rose and I are on the other side. Live well. Love Rory, because that kind of love, only comes once in lifetimes,” he told her and looked teary-eyed at his wife.

 

“Goodbye, Amelia,” Rose whispered and kissed her on the forehead before they walked into the crack shining in the wall, hand in hand.

 

\--'--{@ @}--'--

 

James opened his eyes with a gasp and found himself in a hotel room with River. She sat up next to him, similarly disoriented.

 

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

 

“Dad said that I'd only exist so long as there was a chance that Amy's memory of us could bring them back. My parents never existed until I can help Amy remember us. Otherwise, I'll disappear,” James explained.

 

“Me too,” River added.

 

“What?” James wondered, already knowing what she would say.

 

“Spoilers,” she sighed and he nodded.

 

“So, how do we remind her then? Just walk up and start talking about old times?” River questioned.

 

“No, dad said that I couldn't show myself until they were back. There must be some way though that we can get a message to her. Something to jog her memory,” he replied and tugged at his hair the way his father used to when he was frustrated. It was similarly messy now.

 

“Is there something of yours that we could show her that she might recognize or remember?” River suggested.

 

“Not really. I mean, there's my sonic, but... wait. She's seen your diary,” he realized.

 

“My diary? You mean she's read it?” River gasped.

 

“No! No, she's seen the outside of it. It looks similar to the TARDIS with the panels and the colour. Maybe if we left that where she could find it, she might remember the TARDIS!” James told her.

 

River pulled the book from her bag and opened it. “It's blank, James! Why is it blank?”

 

“Because, until the timelines are restored, it's all in flux. It might never have happened,” he explained. “What's the date? We have to find Amy.”

 

“It's her wedding day of course. That's when the explosion happened,” River told him with a roll of her eyes.

 

“Right. So, we have to find out where the wedding or the reception will be and get over there to leave the book where she can find it and hope that it's enough to remind her of us,” James said, much more confident now that they had a plan.

 

“I know where it is. Let's go,” River told him and took his hand to lead him towards the reception hall.

 

She was already at the reception, of course. She couldn't be there for the party. But they could leave the diary on the head table to be found. They waited outside as the guests had dinner and just before the speeches began, they saw that Amy had discovered the book. She cried, then shouted and finally, the TARDIS materialized in the middle of the room.

 

James lifted River into a spinning hug. “We did it! Oh, we did it, River!” he cried happily into her neck. “Come on!” he added, tugging her towards the party.

 

“I can't go in there, James,” she told him.

 

“Why not?” he asked her.

 

River shook her head sadly, indicating that she wished she could tell him why. He tilted his head curiously. There were very few reasons why she wouldn't be able to go inside. None of them should be possible, but he accepted it.

 

“Meet me after the party then? I should be there,” James told her.

 

“You definitely need to be there. I'll meet you after,” she replied.

 

During the reception, his mum and dad danced happily. Sometimes they danced rather embarrassingly. And he even danced a little bit with Amy and his mother. He noticed someone else. She was dressed the same as the bridesmaids, but she wasn't taking part in the party. She just watched the Doctor and Rose from the shadows. He approached the young lady with dark skin and leaned against the wall nearby.

 

“Hello,” he said quietly and she startled a bit, not having seen his arrival.

 

“Um, hi,” she replied.

 

“Didn't want to join the party? Looks like you're dressed for it,” he commented.

 

“Yeah, well... I'm umm... not...” she trailed off, clearly unsure how to explain her behaviour.

 

“What's your name?” James asked her.

 

“Melody,” she said softly.

 

“It's very nice to meet you, Melody. My name is James,” he said and offered his hand in greeting.

 

“I thought you were Amy's little friend, Jamie,” she replied with a smirk.

 

“Used to be. I prefer James, makes me feel more grown up. Jamie always made me feel like the useless little kid, you know?” he told Melody.

 

“Yeah. I know exactly what you mean,” Melody sighed.

 

“Are you sure you won't join the party?” James asked her.

 

“I'm sure. I'll see you around, James,” she answered. “That's a promise.”

 

He nodded and walked back to where his dad was doing some kind of strange dance with his arms raised over his head. His mother was rolling with laughter at his antics and he didn't want to waste a perfectly good reception by sulking in the shadows.

 

He sat at one of the tables and his mother joined him in a glass of champagne.

 

“Why don't you come with us for a while? Donna said you missed it,” Rose said after a while.

 

“I think I might. Time at Torchwood, university, even travelling with River for a while, it was never the same as the TARDIS,” he answered. “I've missed you, mum.”

 

“We've missed you too, sweetheart. I never thought you'd be gone so long. I mean, it wasn't all that long for us, but you're all grown up and I missed it,” she told him as a tear rolled down her cheek.

 

“Oh, mum, I'm sorry,” James said and shifted his chair next to hers so that he could give her a hug.

 

“Listen to me. Now I sound like my mother, complaining that you've grown up without me. I never wanted to be like that,” Rose grumbled and snuggled into her son's embrace. “Let's go home.”

 

They stood up, hand in hand and at a quick mental prompt, the Doctor joined them as they walked back to the TARDIS. He had parked it in Amy's backyard when he moved it out of the middle of the reception hall earlier. Just before they got in the doors, James saw River standing nearby.

 

“I'll be inside in just a minute,” he told his parents and they nodded to him before entering the time ship.

 

“Did you have a good time?” River asked him.

 

“Not bad. Would have been nice to have a dancing partner other than my mum,” James replied and handed her back the diary that he got from Amy. He hadn't looked inside, he knew better than that.

 

“Well, not everyone there was dancing,” River told him.

 

James eyed her suspiciously at that. The only person that he saw not dancing was Melody, hiding in the shadows. How did River know that?  


“You said that you couldn't be there. So, how would you know that, River?” he asked her.

 

“Just because I couldn't go there with you now, doesn't mean that I didn't go. Now, I've got to get back to Stormcage. Any suggestions on how I'm getting there?” River asked him.

 

James considered her response carefully. She only had one heart. He had held her in his arms enough times to know that for a fact. She wasn't a Time Lord. She couldn't be Melody, it didn't make sense. And yet, everything that she was hinting at implied that was exactly the case. He knew though that if he asked her, she'd not give him an answer. He filed the information away for now.

 

He took the vortex manipulator from his pocket. His parents had returned it to him earlier, since it did belong to him. He placed it on River's wrist and fastened the buckle.

 

“I can always make another one. Since I'll be travelling by TARDIS for a bit, I think you could use this more than me. Just don't let the guards confiscate it, those parts are hard to come by,” he told her and kissed her hand once he had finished attaching it.

 

“I don't know how to use it,” she told him coyly.

 

“I'll program it for you this time,” he told her as he entered the coordinates for her cell about an hour after they left. He figured that the guards and alarms would have calmed down by then, so they probably wouldn't see her method of arrival and she'd have time to hide it before they found her. “But I expect you to do some reading up on spatial and temporal coordinates in your downtime in that cell,” he said teasingly.

 

“So long as I get the usual reward for good behaviour,” she purred into his ear.

 

“I can't say that I'm familiar with that reward just yet, but you can tell me all about it later,” he replied. “Goodnight, River. I hope I see you again soon.”

 

“Very soon,” she said and her expression seemed almost regretful. “Goodnight, my love.”

 

With a flash of light, she was gone. James sighed and slipped his hands into his pockets as he strolled back into the TARDIS.

 

“So, you seem to have figured out how the enigmatic River Song fits into our lives,” the Doctor commented from where he sat on the jumpseat.

 

“I certainly have,” James replied.

 

“Should I be upset that we weren't invited?” he asked.

 

With a quick laugh, James told him, “No. That hasn't happened quite yet, although I know that at some point it will. She's told me that much, at least. Travelling with her for two years, some things are bound to come out.”

 

“So, who is she? Why is she in Stormcage?” the Doctor asked him. He had been dying to know these answers since the Library.

 

“I don't know. I really don't. I have hints and none of them make any sense, so I really can't tell you, dad,” James answered.

 

Just then, Amy and Rory burst through the TARDIS doors. “Oi! Where are you off to? We haven't even had a snog in the shrubbery yet,” Amy shouted a little too happily.

 

“Amy!” Rory protested.

 

“Shut up. It's my wedding,” she argued.

 

“Yeah, and as much as I love you, Amy, you are not snogging my husband,” Rose informed her as she reentered the console room. She had changed out of her fancy dress and into comfy pyjama pants and a camisole.

 

“Sorry, you two. Shouldn't have slipped away, but Jamie wanted to get home. He's decided to come along for a while and we are glad to have him, aren't we dear?” the Doctor announced as he wrapped an arm over Rose's shoulder.

 

“So, you've just saved the whole of space and time. Take the evening off. Maybe a bit of tomorrow,” Rory suggested.

 

“And we probably will, but we'd best be off from your backyard, yeah. You two have honeymoon type things to do,” Rose told them.

 

“Space and time isn't safe yet. The TARDIS exploded for a reason. Something drew the TARDIS to this particular date and blew it up. Why? And why now?” the Doctor mused.

 

The phone started ringing and the Doctor answered it, “Hello? Oh, hello.” He winced a bit, apparently unhappy that he answered whomever was calling. “I'm sorry, this is a very bad line. No, no, no, but that's not possible. Ok, Egyptian artifact and something is loose on the Orient Express, in space. Give us a mo',” the Doctor said and covered the phone with his hand to speak to Rory and Amy. “Sorry, something's come up. This will have to be goodbye.”

 

“Yeah, I think it's goodbye. Do you think it's goodbye?” Amy asked Rory.

 

“Definitely goodbye,” he agreed.

 

They went to the TARDIS doors and opened them wide to shout and wave goodbye to Leadworth. James smirked and shook his head. Life in the TARDIS was never dull.

 

“Don't worry about a thing, your Majesty. We're on our way,” the Doctor said before hanging up the phone.


End file.
